


Something sweet as pain

by jotunemo



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Violence, Brotherly Angst, Brotherly Love, Canon Divergence - Avengers (2012), Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Frigga (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kinda, Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki breaking down, Loki is hurting, Loki needs a little love, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, POV Loki, POV Thor (Marvel), Protective Frigga (Marvel), Protective Thor (Marvel), Psychological Torture, Psychosis, Psychotic break?, Self-Harm, Sort Of, Surrender is not in Thor's nature, Thor (Marvel) Feels, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Thor no longer takes Odin's BS, Thor tries to be a good bro, breaking point, emotional catatonia, just what happens when a mind shuts down really, never forget that asgard is a patriarchy, thanos is an abusive piece of shit, tw blood, tw mindrape, tw vomit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-19 16:02:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 35,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22846936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jotunemo/pseuds/jotunemo
Summary: Thor arrives at Stark Tower in the middle of the battle against the Chitauri to stop his brother and this time, he realizes that Loki is being mind-controlled and he gives it his everything to shake him out of it. But neither of them is prepared for what happens when Loki wakes.
Relationships: Frigga | Freyja & Loki (Marvel), Loki & Odin (Marvel), Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 128
Kudos: 517





	1. Bring your brother home

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea that came to me yesterday morning after reading one of my twitter mutuals' fics on ff.net (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13504353/1/Purpose) even though the idea of Loki being tortured like this is something that has been my headcanon for a while now (and it also comes up in Beyond Mischief). This thing is not really fleshed out (it was supposed to be an OS) and I don't know if I can or will take it any further (like Thor defending Loki against the Avengers and later Odin), so it would be helpful for me to know what you think of it.

**“There’s no other love like the love for a brother. There’s no other love like the love from a brother.”**

* * *

Thor lands on Stark Tower, Mjölnir firmly gripped in his right hand. Loki is standing on Iron Man’s landing spot, that accursed scepter of unknown origin that could possibly do damage of proportions hitherto undreamt of firmly gripped in his.

Thor yells his brother’s name, the battle raging above, beneath and all around them.

Loki turns towards him with a pinched face. A foreign face. A haunted face. A face that bears no resemblance to the face of his beloved little brother who let go of Gungnir and plunged into the abyss of space until the void between the branches of Yggdrasil devoured his body.

“Turn off the Tesseract or I’ll destroy it,” Thor commands, his voice trembling with anger. Anger and disbelief. He mourned for him, he watched his mother succumb to grief until she finally found a way to locate him and then he watched Frigga succumb to panic when she realized that wherever Loki was, he was suffering, and Thor’s heart breaks all over again when he remembers how she has been pleading with him to bring her youngest son home.

But Loki does not want to come home. Loki no longer thinks of Asgard as his home or of Thor as his brother.

“You can’t,” Loki replies in a soft growl that is as foreign as his face. “There is no stopping it.” He points the scepter at Thor, the spaceships of his—his?—alien army swirling through the sky behind his frame. “There is only,” Loki continues, his breathing heavy, “the war.”

No, Loki no longer listens to reason.

“So be it,” says Thor because Loki is no longer Loki.

The person whose body strains into attack mode and lunges at him with the fierce roar of a feline predator is not his brother and Thor acts on pure instinct when he raises Mjölnir and smashes the hammer against the scepter, uru clattering against metal.

Loki fights back and parts of the building crumble away beneath them, crashing to the ground. Thor does not understand what is happening or what has happened or what might possibly happen, so he merely ducks Loki’s blows and deals out his own until Loki grabs him by the neck and then hurls him away, smashing him onto the ground in order to level the scepter at an approaching Midgardian aircraft.

A wave of sizzling blue energy shoots out from the weapon’s tip and crashes into the wing of the aircraft, instantly setting it on fire and sending it spiraling downwards.

Thor scrambles to his feet, his fair falling into his face. He gazes at Loki through the strands of his hair, gazes at this foreign version of his brother, and then his body moves of its own accord as a wave of strength floods through him and he hurls himself at Loki with his full weight, an angry roar rumbling out of his mouth.

Loki defends himself vigorously and Thor cannot stop himself from ramming his fists and his hammer into his estranged little brother’s armored chest again and again and again until, finally, Loki falters. The scepter clatters to the ground.

“ _Look_ at this!” Thor cries, pressing Loki against the wall with the hilt of Mjölnir. “Look around you!”

Loki complies and his gaze sweeps the cityscape succumbing to the wrath of battle, taking in the fires and the smoke, and his mouth and eyes gape wide open in shock; consternation; disbelief; fear. Above all, fear. And suddenly, Thor sees his little brother again in those eyes. It is only a brief flash but he sees the brother who let go of his life and his past and his family because he felt there was nothing on Asgard worth holding on to.

“Do you think this madness will end with your rule?” Thor presses on, his voice desperate, his breath hitching.

Loki’s gaze lands on Thor and the bottom drops out of the Thundergod’s stomach when he sees the confusion and terror on his brother's pale face.

“It’s too late,” Loki growls softly, his breathing getting heavier, and Thor can see tears glistering in his eyes. “It’s too late to stop it.”

Loki’s lips twitch as if there is more he wants to say but he remains silent and Thor just stares at him because, _by all the Realms, how could it come to this?_ Loki’s breath comes in sharp gasps now as panic rises up inside of him, glaring at Thor from in his blue eyes. Loki has not meant any of this to happen, Thor realizes, finally realizes, and the understanding slams into his gut like a barrow’s load of uru. Loki never means things to happen, never means for his schemes to go awry and wreak havoc, but this is different. He is not doing any of this of his own free will. Thor has suspected this earlier but now he is sure.

 _Bring him home_ , Frigga’s voice echoes through his skull. _I know he is in pain_. _Someone is_ … _Please, bring your brother **home** , my love_.

“No,” says Thor, his voice softening. “We can. Together.”

His brother’s confused eyes lock with his, his breath coming in rapid, shallow gasps, and a tear spills out of his eye.

“Loki,” Thor whispers urgently.

A spark of madness flares up in his brother’s eyes and Thor throws Mjölnir away so that he can reach for Loki’s neck with both of his hands. As soon as his fingers touch his brother’s skin beneath the cheek guard of his helmet, Thor feels the presence of someone else, someone malicious and ruthless, and a cold sweat of fear starts pouring down his back.

“Loki, listen to me,” Thor pleads, panic creeping into his voice. “You might not remember anything of our past but you are my brother and I want you to come home.” His voice hitches on the last word and tears well into his eyes.

Loki stares at him with nothing but naked terror in his eyes, his face pinched and pale. His skin vibrates against Thor’s palms and even though the God of Thunder is not half as versed in magic as his mother and brother, he understands that the someone whose presence he feels is conversing with Loki and that Loki is fighting that presence. Fighting and losing.

“Loki, please,” Thor cries out and then yanks his brother’s helmet off his head and flings it on the ground. “Listen to me, please.”

Loki shakes his head, a vague and clumsy movement. Thor blows out a breath and touches his brother’s forehead. He never saw a merit in wielding sorcery and he does not know how to perform any thought projection or memory manipulation spells but he knows that he must try anyway.

Frigga would want him to try. Frigga needs him to try. Frigga depends on him to bring Loki home and he cannot betray his mother’s confidence. He cannot come home without his little brother.

“Mother sent me here,” Thor whispers.

Loki’s lips part and he blinks, the foreign bright blue of his eyes slowly paling into green.

“She sent me here because she misses you. She knows you are alive,” Thor hurries on, his words almost tumbling over themselves. “She wants you back. _I_ want you back. You might think that you no longer belong to this family but you do! You _do_!”

 _Liar_ , booms a deep, menacing voice inside Loki’s head, and Thor flinches, almost jerking his hand away. _They did not want you then and they do not want you now_. _They cast you out, they threw you away and they never came for you_.

“Be silent!” Thor screams.

_Do you not understand that you need to finish what you came to Earth to do to prove your worth to them?_

Loki’s eyes narrow and the flicker of blue returns.

“Loki, no,” Thor pleads softly.

 _Your brother thinks you weak, needy, and vulnerable_. _Can you not see it in his eyes how much he despises your weakness right now?_

“I do not!” Thor screams and shakes Loki violently, his heart thundering against his ribcage. “Be silent, you wretched monster! Loki, please.” His voice almost breaks. “Do not listen to that voice! Listen to _me_! Listen to your _brother_!

 _He threw you into the void_.

Tears well into Loki’s eyes and, suddenly, Thor can see what Loki saw and he can feel what Loki felt: He sees his own face, distorted, a devilish grin on his lips, his eyes full of contempt as he spits, “Monsters have no place in Asgard, Loki,” and then he hurls Loki into the abyss of space and Loki’s heart is shattering in his chest and the pain deadens him, hollowing him out, carving out his very soul, and stars are speeding by in a blur and Loki loses all sense of time and space and then there is a barren planet and a cave and pain, just pain, and nothing else but pain and his body is dying of thirst and his bones are breaking and his face is throbbing and the skin of his lips breaks open and there is the taste of blood, metallic and sharp, and it trickles down his throat and he almost chokes on it and there is no love and no emotions and no desire to hold on to anything because _You are a monster and you are unworthy and no one will come to your rescue because they never loved you because of the MONSTER that you are underneath that delicate Asgardian face that you wear as a guise and they are glad that you are gone because you are a MONSTER! MONSTER! MONSTER!_

Thor feels vomit shooting up his throat and it costs him everything to swallow it down and not to break into tears or faint.

 _Kill him_ , commands the voice. _Kill the brother that never loved you_.

Loki is crying tonelessly but his stare is blank and he is not moving, almost as if this presence lurking in the depth of his mind has finally broken him. Thor shakes his brother, gently, and he does not realize that he is crying until he speaks and his words come out between sobs. “I never tossed you into the abyss,” Thor says, his voice hitching. “That is a lie! These are all lies! I wouldn’t. Not _ever_. Look at me!” He grabs him by the shoulders. “Look at me, Loki! You are my brother. You are my family.” He clasps Loki’s neck and tries to lock eyes with him and he thinks that he can see a modicum of sanity left in his brother’s empty eyes and he softly brushes his lips against Loki’s ice-cold forehead. “I love you.”

These three words jolt Loki with such an intensity that Thor flinches. Loki draws a sharp breath and then another and another, all color draining from his face.

“I love you,” Thor repeats but he cannot be sure that his brother is hearing him because Loki’s entire body is trembling, vibrating really, and he is gasping for air as if he were choking.

 _Pathetic_ , whispers the voice on a condescending chuckle before it finally fades away and then Loki’s eyes close and his entire body goes limp and he crumbles to the ground.

“Loki?” Thor asks, panic creeping into his blood as he slides down besides his brother, who is finally his brother again, and his hands clumsily reach out to hold him. But Loki is not conscious. He is not breathing. He is _… No …_

“Loki?”

No answer.

“Loki!”

_Please, bring your brother **home** , my love. _

“LOKI!”

And finally, Loki stirs and glances up at him with confused green eyes. “Thor?” he whispers.

“Yes.” Thor laughs through his tears, a wave of relief washing over him. “Yes, I am here.”

Loki closes his eyes again and a trembling breath escapes his lips. “T-take t-the s-scepter,” he gasps and Thor senses that it costs his brother everything to speak these words and he wishes that he could take all that pain away from him, “t-take it … it will … c-close … b-bring it t-to … Sel …vig.”

“The scepter can close the portal?” asks Thor and Loki gives a weak nod.

“I will,” says Thor. “Just hold on, alright? _Please_ hold on.”

Loki nods once more but he is already losing consciousness again.


	2. Do you know who I am?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki recovers consciousness when the portal closes but he is still not, well, not quite himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this got quite a bit of a response, I've decided to continue it. I have an idea for a plot now that involves Thor hunting down Thanos and I think I can take this somewhere. But please be prepared, I will heap all the whump in the world on our favorite trickster god in this one. And on Thor too because, well, he needs to suffer. They both need to suffer. We all need to suffer! *snickers in evil*
> 
> Oh, and this is canon divergence so the council wasn't cold-blooded enough to wanna launch a strike against the civilian population of Manhattan and the portal doesn't need to stay open until Tony gets the nuke through.

**"Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us." ~ David Richo**

* * *

“Thor?” whispers Erik Selvig when the Thundergod lands on the upper roof of Stark Tower where the scientist has built the machine that is harnessing and stabilizing the Tesseract’s energy in order to keep the portal open. His handiwork is whirring and sizzling with the energy of the mighty cube, shooting a pillar of light into the sky.

“Wh-what d-did I,” Selvig stammers, glancing at Thor for support. He looks confused and shaken but the doctor’s eyes too have lost their blue sheen.

“It wasn’t your doing,” Thor hurries to say because there is only one thing on his mind and that is Loki, who is lying unconscious below them with his body drained by the weapon in Thor’s hand and his mind poisoned by the mysterious voice who has been in command of it this entire time. “You have been made into a tool, just like my brother.” He holds the weapon out to Selvig. “Loki said the scepter can shut it down.”

The scientist is slowly collecting himself with deep breaths but he still shoots Thor a wary glance. “B-but your brother …”

“Enough, Erik,” Thor commands and the other man flinches from the deep, commanding tone of his voice. “We do not have any time to spare. Close the portal. The time for explanations will come soon enough.”

The scientist stares at the scepter between them with an expression of awe as if he has never seen it before for a few heartbeats but then recognition flashes across his face. “I built in a safety,” he mumbles and his breathing is heavy, “to cut their power source … The energy of the scepter can deflect the energy of the cube … He told me this … Why did Loki tell me to …”

“Just shut it off, please,” Thor urges him and Selvig gives a hesitant nod before he walks up to the machine, flips open a computer screen and taps a few keys until the safety he spoke of materializes around the machine harnessing the Tesseract’s energy in a translucent shield. He nods at Thor and then at the scepter, saying, “Right at the crown.”

Thor blows out a breath, pokes the scepter through the barrier and feels the energy of the cube answering to it. A crackle comes from the artifacts, sounding almost as if they are conversing in a language of electrical impulses, and Thor can feel the scepter’s hilt vibrating with their magic, their raw power biting into the skin of his palms.

 _This is ancient magic_ , Thor realizes as the pillar of light trembles, sending a shockwave into the sky. _Ancient magic_ _predating the order of this universe, predating even Asgard_. He gazes up as the portal closes, its edges looking like dark veins against the blue sky before it shrinks up with a deafening rumble and, then, simply vanishes from sight as if it has never even existed in the first place.

Below, on the streets, people are throwing their arms up into the air, crying out tonelessly.

Thor heaves a sigh of relief and then directs his attention back at Loki, who … is no longer there. Thor’s lips gape open in confusion. “How can he,” he whispers in astonishment. He knows he shouldn’t be surprised because that is what Loki always does, isn’t it, he casts illusions to play tricks on people’s minds and disappears into the air shrouded by a spell and shapeshifts into a raven that sits down on the windowsill to spy on him when he has private conversations with the Lady Sif, but only moments ago he was too exhausted to even keep his eyes open. He couldn’t have possibly … Or could he? Thor is not sure—Loki is resourceful and resilient, he can do pretty much anything—but thinking about the mind games Loki used to play on him makes him realize, or maybe not realize, but certainly understand to some extent that everything his little brother has suffered through, every little bit of terror and agony he has seen and felt during the past year, might finally shatter his fragile mind.

Thor drops the scepter, reaches for Mjölnir and leaps down from the upper roof, his heart beating in his throat. Just as his boots land on the concrete with a thud, a movement registers on the periphery of his vision and he turns around to see the Hulk jump on the roof and run past him in a blur of green.

“Oh no,” Thor gasps and charges after the beast into Tony Stark’s quarters, where Loki is on the floor, crawling away from the war he has unleashed, crawling on all fours like an animal or a helpless child. Seeing his proud brother brought so low turns Thor’s stomach once again.

“Banner, no!” Thor bellows. He is already swinging Mjölnir and when the Hulk makes no move to stop, he hurls it after him but the beast turns around, roaring at him as it catches the norndamned hammer. “Must smash the enemy!”

“He is not the enemy, okay?” Thor gasps as he summons Mjölnir back into his hand. “Not anymore!” He thinks about unleashing a thunderbolt but Loki is too close and, by Odin’s Ravens, he doesn’t even look up. He just keeps crawling and then the Hulk picks him up by the feet with his giant green meat hooks and his brother exhales a shaky breath but he is not speaking. He is just staring, his eyes blank and wide open.

“Alright, put him down!” Thor roars, swinging his hammer, just for emphasis really, because he knows he cannot attack as long as the Hulk is holding his brother.

The Hulk merely stares at him, his face an angry grimace. “Must smash the enemy,” the beast repeats.

“He is _not_ the enemy,” repeats Thor, through clenched teeth.

“Wait, did we miss something?” comes from Agent Romanoff who has made it to the tower with Barton. She scrunches up her nose, eying him warily, and Thor can almost smell their distrust.

“You did, yes,” Thor presses out, anger rising inside of him at the sight of the Hulk holding his brother upside down like a lifeless doll, with Loki’s head facing the ground. “What he did to you,” Thor snaps at Barton, “it was done to him as well. He was under the influence of that scepter himself!” He glares at the Hulk. “Now, put him _down_!”

“Put him down,” agrees Stark, who comes flying in through the door. “He clearly isn’t a threat anymore right now.”

The Hulk grumbles.

“Put him down!” Thor demands again and, finally, the beast obliges with an exasperated grunt and flings Loki back onto the ground, his golden armor clanging against the stone floor.

Thor drops his hammer and to his knees, feeling for his brother’s pulse. “Loki?” he whispers. “Can you hear me?”

But Loki just stares. Damn it all, he just stares, his eyes unfocused.

Thor shakes him but he gets no response except for a soft whimpering noise that rams an icy splinter of fear into his heart.

 _Bring your brother home, my love_. He can almost hear Frigga’s voice, can almost hear the panic seeping into her words. _But not like this! What happened to him? Why didn’t you **save** him?_

“Care to elaborate?” Tony Stark asks as his Iron Man helmet disintegrates, revealing a face pinched up with suspicion.

Thor looks up at the mortal and his chest yawns open at the recollection of Loki’s false memories and all his pain. So much pain. “I am going to take my brother back to Asgard,” Thor announces, his gaze hiking up the building where the Tesseract and the scepter are still with Erik Selvig. “I need to take him to the healing room there as quickly as possible.”

“The healing room?” echoes Barton.

“I don’t know how you felt after you shook off the scepter’s influence but I dare say you’ve also felt a little drained,” Thor grumbles. “Loki fell into space a year ago.” Thor harrumphs because he knows how outrageous this must sound to their kind. “He has been untraceable for almost a year and we thought him dead until he came here with the Tesseract’s aid and I fear that he has been poisoned by this scepter for all this time.”

“By whom?” asks Steve Rogers, who is just now joining them.

“I do not know that yet,” Thor admits. “But I heard his voice inside Loki’s head and he …” _Tortured his body and raped his mind until there was nothing left but this helpless creature who is cowering on the floor, gazing up with no flicker of recognition in his dead, empty eyes_. “He broke him.”

Romanoff swallows.

“I don’t know who he is but I will find him and I will kill him with my bare hands for what he has done to my brother and your world,” Thor growls. “And now I will take these artifacts that are infested with ancient magic and that are too powerful and too dangerous to remain on your world to my father and Loki to my mother.” He stretches out his hand and softly touches his brother’s shoulder. “Are you ready to come home with me?”

“Not a chance,” says Tony Stark. “You can’t just—”

“Look at him, Tony!” Thor roars and his voice breaks. “Just _look_ at him!” A tremor of trepidation rocks his body—because what if Loki stays like this, what if his smart, sassy little brother never awakes again and what if his brilliant mind remains shattered forever and can’t be pieced back together, not even by the Asgardian healers or Frigga’s healing spells—and his shivering startles Loki. He blinks and turns away, and he starts crawling again.

“Where are you going?” Thor asks him softly, nurturing a tiny hope that, at some point, Loki will reply.

“Away,” his brother breathes so quietly that Thor thinks he might have imagined it.

“Okay, this is …” Stark’s voice trails off and he walks over to Loki, crouching down in front of him. “Hey, can you hear us?” Thor watches and his entire body tenses as Stark snaps his fingers in front of Loki’s face. “Is somebody in there?”

Loki exhales another trembling breath. “W-why?” He blinks again. “I d-don’t even know … who you are.”

“How convenient,” Clint Barton grumbles. The Black Widow puts her hand on his arm to comfort him and they turn away towards Steve Rogers, who doesn’t really look as if he knows what to do with himself now that the battle is over and who also looks slightly embarrassed to see Loki in such a state of raw, unguarded vulnerability even though he has fought him until moments ago.

“Do you know who _I_ am?” Thor whispers and he is so afraid of the answer that his heart sits physically heavy inside his chest.

“The mighty Thor,” says Loki but his voice is flat, as if there is no emotion attached to the knowledge any longer. “The son of Odin. The Thunderer. The crown prince of the Aesir.”

Thor nods. “And do you know who you are?”

This time, there is no response. Loki just stares.

“You are my brother,” Thor says and he puts his hands on his brother’s shoulders again. “You are Loki. Odinson. And I’m going to take you home now. Home to Asgard.”

Loki’s lips part and he shakes his head. “No.”

A lump forms in Thor’s throat and he tries to swallow it down. “Do you remember Asgard?”

A vague nod.

“Do you remember our mother? Frigga?” Thor elaborates when Loki gives no response. “The queen?”

Another vague nod.

“She is waiting for you,” Thor continues and his words come out in a voice that is thick with held back tears because, by Odin’s all-seeing eye, he can’t break down now that his brother needs him to be strong enough for both of them. “At home. We need to get you home, okay, so that she can take care of …” Words fail him when he realizes that he is talking to his brother as if he were a small child and Loki shakes his head again, whispering, “Not to Asgard.”

Thor’s first impulse is to scoop his brother up and drag him back home anyway but then it crosses his mind that Loki did not think of Asgard as his home anymore even before that evil creature laid hands upon him and poisoned his mind with the lie that he means nothing to his family, and Thor remembers the day he lost him, the day Loki let go of his sanity because he probably feared that Odin would send him back to Jotunheim and that Thor would slay him for the monster he thought he was and Thor thinks about how these thoughts festered in his brother’s subconscious until their poisonous fumes wafted into his conscious thinking and he felt there was no reason to hold on to his life. He thinks about how this was the Loki that the monster found; a proud, intelligent, fearless prince, broken by the revelation that he was the bloodson of a giant whom he has grown up to think of as evil and monstrous and hideous; not worthy of anything but hatred and contempt.

No, Loki no longer thinks of Asgard as his home. By Hel, his mind has apparently shut itself off enough for him to forget his relation to the Asgardians because these memories are too threatening and too painful and if Thor brings him back against his will, he might break what is left of his brother's heart and he can’t do that to him. Not after everything … else that was done to him. 

“Do you want to stay here?” Thor asks and glances at Stark, who nods even as Natasha, Steve and Clint break out into a murmur of objections. “Last time I checked, this building is mine and I can invite whoever I want,” says Tony.

But Loki shakes his head.

“Where do you want to go, then?” Thor asks and there is a brief flicker in Loki’s empty eyes. Thor’s stomach clenches when he mentally steels himself for the answer.

“Back,” Loki whispers and Thor’s heart plummets to the bottom of his stomach with such force that he gags. “Back to Him.”


	3. No help from Asgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go awry because, well, it's Loki and Thor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since y'all expressed an interest in the pain and the angst and the hurt specifically, I decided to crank it up a notch. You are welcome! *continues to snicker in evil*

Thor cannot believe what he is hearing and his body itches to grab Loki by the shoulders and shake him and smash him against a wall until all the dislodged parts of his mind miraculously reconnect but he forces himself to proceed with a gentle caution that costs him almost all of his strength. “Why?” he whispers. “Why would you want to go back _there_?”

Loki gives no response and Thor can only assume that his little brother wants to go back to the pain, that terrible, terrible mind-shattering pain that would pose a threat to even the strongest person’s sanity, and his stomach churns once more and he remembers the deep, menacing sound of that voice in his ears and he shivers and it takes all he has to swallow the vomit down.

 _Back to Him_.

 _Back to **Him**_.

Back to Him, Him with a capital H, which implies that Loki thinks of that monster as some sort of deity and which makes his whole nightmare even more terrifying.

“So we’re really buying this, uh,” grumbles Clint Barton and Thor’s hand fists with the desire to crash into the archer’s face.

“I think we are, yes,” replies Steve. “After everything that’s happened with this guy, I don’t think he would put on a show that makes him look so weak and so vulnerable.”

“Not in a million years,” Thor hisses through clenched teeth. Distant thunder rumbles across the sky, the Hulk roars at the sound, and then changes back into Bruce Banner, who tumbles over to the bar and sits down on one of the chairs, his breathing heavy.

“Have you tried to smack him real hard in the head?” Natasha asks, to which Clint grunts. “Hey, that is how I got him out of your head, right?” She locks eyes with Thor then, her gaze fierce and intense, and the God of Thunder recognizes that she knows the truth. That woman in front of him knows that his brother has been tortured. “Maybe cognitive recalibration gets that other person out of your brother’s head too.”

“You know this term is not a thing, right?” Stark asks back.

 _That other person_ , Thor echoes silently. _No, this is not a person_. _This is a monster and I will hunt it down with my last and every breath_ , _I swear it_. “He’s already shaken off the influence.”

“Has he?” Natasha presses him. “If he were free, why would he want to go back to someone who poisoned his mind?”

Thor glances at Loki, who has poised in a half-sitting, half-lying position on the floor and is staring blankly into space, giving no sign of awareness that he knows they are talking about him.

 _That is a very good question_ , _isn’t it?_

Steve Rogers glances at his shield and then searches for Thor’s gaze. It has been his first impulse too, yes. Just smack some sense into him and if that doesn’t work, Thor thinks as he gazes up onto the roof where Selvig still stands, forlorn and confused and dehydrated, if that doesn’t work, he will bring Loki back to Asgard even if that is against his will because he doesn’t know what else to do and he feels horrifyingly helpless and he needs the advice and the comfort of his mother and Loki does too because, at the end of the day, if there is anyone in all the realms who can breach the walls he has built around his mind, it is Frigga.

Thor gives a nod. “I’m sorry, Loki, but we’re trying to help you, okay? This will hurt.”

A brief flicker in his brother’s eyes, a vague nod.

And then, when Steve whacks him over the head with his vibranium shield, there is actually a smile; a smile that is almost melancholic, plucking at Loki’s lips.

Steve’s mouth gapes open when Loki’s blank stare searches for his eyes. “Please don’t stop,” Loki whispers softly, intimately almost, and Thor knows that he is going to explode if he has to hear Loki begging to be hurt one more time, and he rises to his feet and says, “That’s it. I’m going to get the Tesseract and the scepter.”

“Wait, so you _are_ leaving?” asks Tony, his eyes darting from Loki to Thor and back to Loki. “Didn’t you say—”

“You can’t help him,” Thor cuts in. “And neither can I. Not here, on this world.”

He storms out of the tower, swings Mjölnir and hurls it upwards until the hammer propels him off the ground and onto the roof. Tony comes flying after him and Selvig stares at them wide-eyed, his breathing still heavy. “Let’s get you down, Doctor,” says Tony as he picks the fellow scientist up.

Thor puts his hand through Mjölnir’s leather strap and then reaches into the machine Erik has built and he pulls out the cube with the hammer dangling from his arm. The Tesseract is still glowing and Thor can feel the ancient force locked within stir against his palms in search for the magic flowing through his veins. The scepter’s tip is still glowing as well and he narrows his eyes at the accursed thing before he grabs it as well and leaps down onto the level of the landing spot where Erik Selvig now stands by the glass doors, rooted to the spot with his apprehensive eyes fixed on Loki.

“He’s not a threat anymore,” Tony assures him. “At least not right now.”

“And we are actually on our way out,” says Thor. “I apologize for always bringing so much chaos and misery with me when I come here but I will take Loki away now and, hopefully, we shall not bother you again in the future.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D.’s not gonna be happy if they hear that you took the cube and the scepter off our hands,” Natasha points out.

“The Tesseract has been here long enough,” Thor replies and then kneels down in front of his brother. “Listen, I know you don’t want to go back to Asgard but we need to get these weapons out of Midgard. They are too dangerous to stay here and we have to bring them to Asgard, so they won’t do any more damage here, do you understand?”

A vague nod.

“And after that, we can go wherever you want and do whatever you want to do but we need to go to Asgard first, okay?” Thor looks at Loki, waiting for his approval because he does not want to take him against his will even though he knows it is the right thing to do since Midgardian healers can’t possibly help him and he can’t possibly go back to that monster in that hellish place.

Another vague nod, this one hardly perceptible.

“Was that a nod?” Thor asks.

“I think so, yeah,” Tony agrees.

Thor blows out a breath. “Okay, put your hands on the cube then, brother,” he says but Loki does not move a muscle. Thor places the cube on his legs, takes his brother’s hand and places it onto the Tesseract. Loki shivers but his stare remains blank and unfocused. “Do not let go, please,” Thor whispers as he places his hand over that of his brother and tries to tap into the signature of the Tesseract’s magic. When he senses it pulsating through the veins of the cube, he glances up at the humans and says, quietly, “Farewell,” before he visualizes his mother’s chambers in front of his inner eye. The cube complies with his silent command after a few heartbeats and a cloud of blue envelops him and Loki and the last thing Thor sees from the corner of his eye is Tony Stark, who looks almost disappointed that they are leaving, and then the energy enshrouding them takes them away through space that does not feel like space at all and before he can really clothe any rational thought in words, they are back on Asgard and Thor can hear Frigga’s outcry.

* * *

“By all the Realms!” Frigga is screaming as she rushes up to them and drops to her knees in front of them, sweeping her boys into her arms. “You are back! You brought him home! The Norns bless you, my sons!”

“Yes, but …” Thor’s voice breaks as he sees the expression of naked terror materialize on his mother’s face when she notices that Loki has withdrawn so deep into his own mind that he does not even react to her presence. He sits, still unmoving, still unfocused, with hollow cheeks and dead eyes and unwashed hair.

“Loki?” Frigga whispers and her gaze falls on the Tesseract in her sons’ hands and then on the scepter in Thor’s. Tears pool into her eyes and when Thor sees her cry, he can finally cry too—because he is home with his mother now and she will find a way to reach Loki, yes, she will, because no harm can come to them if she is there protecting her sons because that is how things have always been she has always kept them safe and she must keep Loki safe now, _she must_ , _she **must**_ _and she will_ **_there is no other way_** —and his own tears spill out of his eyes, and he drops the cube, the scepter, the hammer, and he rises to his feet and paces the length of the room, his eyes on his helpless, broken, vulnerable little brother, and he chokes on a sob.

“Wh-what happened?” Frigga asks softly and he can hear the reluctance in her words, can hear the fear of the answer. She has stretched out her hand and is running her fingers through Loki’s greasy hair but his brother still doesn’t move. He doesn’t even glance up at the mother he once loved so dearly.

The sight rams a knife into his heart and twists it until Thor has to gasp for breath. “He was tortured,” he whispers and his voice is vibrating with rage and fear.

Frigga exhales a trembling breath as she cups Loki’s cheek in her palm but Loki does not even as much as stir.

“He was tortured in s-some s-sort of cave, I don’t know, it was barren planet, maybe an asteroid belt or something and his mind … his mind … whoever found him, he poisoned his mind with that scepter and he told him that … that …” His voice breaks and he buries his head in his hands and Frigga rises to her feet to comfort him, gently squeezing his arm.

“He told him that we never loved him because he’s a monster, and that I … that I tried to k-kill him because he is … Jötunn, that I … t-tossed him into the abyss.” Thor wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “I reached out to him until that presence was gone from his head but now he is like _this_ and I …”

“Has he said anything?” asks Frigga.

“Only a few things,” Thor blubbers out. “He didn’t want to come here. He wanted to go … back to the monster who did that to him. And he knows who I am and he remembers Asgard but I don’t think … I mean … I’m not sure if he remembers himself.”

Frigga nods absentmindedly, her gaze flicking to the scepter. “The Mind Stone,” she murmurs.

Thor’s tears slowly run dry as he tries to figure out what that means. “What?”

The queen picks up the scepter, thoughtfully inspects the blue gem between the two gleaming blades and chants a spell that shatters the containment vessel and reveals a sparkling yellow gem that floats in the air. “Just what I feared.”

Thor swallows when he hears the awe in her voice. “Wh-what is this?”

“This, my son, is one of the six Infinity Stones, the greatest power in our universe, which is unparalleled in its destructive capabilities,” Frigga explains. “The Mind Stone contains a highly advanced intelligence at its core that operates similarly to a sentient mind. It can grant sentience to artificial beings but, more importantly, this stone grants whoever wields it complete control over the hearts and minds of others.” She glances down at Loki, and exhales another shaky breath.

Thor follows her gaze and the sight of his brother’s formidable mind wrecked like this still takes his breath away. “He had the scepter with him when he came to Midgard and he used it to control the mortals but they … their minds haven’t shut down like his.”

“If he has been under the stone’s influence for this whole year,” Frigga begins in a teary voice, “I fear that the stone might have depleted the essence of his mind.” She glances at the gem. “The Loki we know might be in there.”

Thor gulps.

Frigga kneels down in front of her youngest. “Loki, honey? Can you hear me?”

He gives a clumsy nod.

“Do you know where you are?”

He raises his chin and tilts his head to the side a little, just a little, his empty eyes sweeping the royal chambers. “Not where … I belong,” Loki whispers.

“And where is that?” Frigga asks and Thor admires her for her ability to stay so calm when her heart must be threatening to burst inside her chest at the sight of her tormented son.

Loki’s lips quiver and he opens them to speak but no sound comes out.

“I’m sorry if this hurts you, my love, but we need to find out what is happening to you,” Frigga whispers before she places her hands against Loki’s temples and chants a spell. A circular surface materializes from thin air, crackling into life with light blue sparks. Loki grimaces but then that content, melancholic smile creeps back onto his lips and Thor can see how he derives comfort from the pain his mother’s spell is causing him. “Are those his memories?” Thor asks.

Frigga gives a half-nod. “Yes. This spell can show …” Her words trail off.

“What?” Thor’s heart gives a lurch as he glances from Loki to the projection that remains dark to his mother and back to the projection.

“I can’t see them,” Frigga whispers. “He … is shutting me out.” Her lips gape open in astonishment. “Loki, please. You need to let me in. You need to show us what happened to you so that we can help you.”

Loki jerks away and then crawls away, whispering, “No help,” and then he slowly, carefully, sits up straight, his dead eyes landing on the cube Thor has dropped on the floor. “No help from Asgard.”

And before Thor or Frigga can say anything, Loki’s fingers curl around the Tesseract and then he vanishes in a puff of blue-black smoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Way to go, Thor, right??? *deep sigh* I mean, we all know he means well but he messes up anyway out of sheer despair and now things absolutely turned to shit and hey, aren't we all here for it?


	4. Your brother is strong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, since this is becoming somewhat popular and has raised a few concerns, I feel obliged to say this: This fic was never meant to raise questions as to whether or not Loki was still at least partly himself while invading New York because I think that he was and that, at some level, he knew exactly what he was doing. Rather, this fic deals with the aftermath of him awakening to the knowledge of what he has done and what his mind does (or does not do) with that realization. And then, there's the stones too, which we all know are sentient ever since Age of Ultron and which have a mind of their own. But now, without further ado, enjoy! ... Kind of?

There is only one thought, or maybe, it is not even a thought, because he is no longer sure what a thought is. It could be an idea or an impulse or a memory, but he no longer genuinely knows what these concepts mean either, even though he supposes that he should. He is vaguely aware that something is not right, that he is not truly _conscious_ at this very moment and that, perhaps, he should be. That he should have more thoughts, ideas or memories, and that he should know why those people of Asgard call him Loki and look at him as if they know him and, even more importantly, as if he knows _them_ and why they touch him and call him “brother” and “my love” and “honey” and why they make it sound as if he belongs with them. Belonging is another concept that no longer makes sense to him because there really is only one thing on his mind, only one thing that he clearly remembers or, at any rate, one thing of which he knows that it means something and that thing is pain.

Well, pain is not truly a thing, is it, but there is the memory of pain at least. The certainty of pain. The alluring comfort of pain.

 ** _He will make you long for something sweet as pain_**.

He.

He does not know who He is, either, but he knows, or senses, and what does it matter anyway because he is, at some level, _aware_ —whatever level this might be—that He is the only one who can give him the pain that he longs for.

Yes, he must go back to Him because there is no other place anywhere in the vastness of existence where he will find pain such as the one that He promised him.

Which is why he reaches for the cube that he too knows has meaning. Well, he does not _truly_ know but he senses in the depths of his mind that is no longer working as a mind is _supposed_ to work that it is important and that it can send him where he needs and longs to be.

And it does. It _does_.

He finds himself on the edges of a rock formation that is floating in space, dark stones silhouetted against the galaxies gleaming in red, blue and purple behind the dark minerals, the only light coming from distant celestial alignments.

He smiles, for this is the only place he remembers.

 _This_ is the place where he _belongs_.

* * *

The Allfather remains quiet for an excruciatingly long time after he has joined them in the royal chambers and Thor and Frigga have finished their tale. His silence almost undoes the God of Thunder because the awareness of his failure is penetrating his mental defenses and he can’t think of anything else other than how Loki’s escape is his fault and his alone because he brought him back here and didn’t listen to him—and why, just _why_ has he never bothered to listen to his little brother?—and maybe this wouldn’t have happened had he stayed on Midgard long enough to try and _figure things out_ for once instead of succumbing to rashness.

“I feared that they would awaken again,” Odin Allfather says at last and Thor knows that he is talking about the Infinity Stones even though he fails to understand how this is what strikes his father’s mind as the most important detail of their account.

“The Convergence draws near,” Frigga replies, cryptically. “They sense it and they will use the ensuing chaos to try and gain power once more.” She pauses, almost solemnly. “I can already feel the Aether stirring and the others will soon follow.”

Odin gives a slow, grim nod.

The Convergence is a norndamned cosmic event that forces all the Nine Realms of Yggdrasil into alignment approximately every five thousand years. An event that may cause cracks in the dimensional boundaries between each of the worlds, which result in unpredictable physical dimensional anomalies such as shifts in gravity and spatial extrusions occurring seemingly at random. The convergence can birth invisible wormholes that allow any sort of matter to move unhindered between the realms and may even tear the fabric of reality apart.

Thor knows this and he knows too that its approach poses a threat to Asgard and all the realms under Asgard’s protection. What he doesn’t know is why this threat seems so much more important to his parents than the fate of his brother. “What about Loki?” he asks and Odin sighs in what might be frustration, anger or disappointment, or even a mixture of all three.

“What about _Loki?_ ” Thor repeats and then something inside of him just snaps when he recalls the horrific images of the fabricated memories whirling through his brother’s mind. All the horrific images about how his own family merely saw him as an inferior monster and … By Yggdrasil, he only now realizes that he never even _asked_ Loki what he’d meant when he’d shouted, “I am not your brother; I _never_ was!” at him in the observatory with tears of despair glistering in his eyes. He also realizes that these memories could have never been planted there by that being in the first place if _he_ hadn’t been so ignorant and, even more important, if Loki hadn’t had to grow up living a lie and if Odin hadn’t kept up the deception for so long and _raised_ him to be _this_ ignorant.

“Why don’t you say something?” Thor screams at his father. “This is all _your_ fault!”

Odin narrows his one eye at him in a cautionary glare, growling, “Have care how you speak to me, son!” 

“Thor, please,” Frigga urges him in a whisper and he knows that his mother means well. He knows that she doesn’t want his father to pour down all his wrath upon him like an acid shower but he can’t be bothered to care. Not right now. Not with Loki’s life and sanity at stake. _Again_.

“You raised him in the belief that his ancestors are monsters!” Thor bellows because there is no stopping the God of Thunder when he sees red and he sees blood red at this very moment. His burning gaze lands on Frigga. “Both of you! He lost his mind because you lied! He would never have _let go_ if you hadn’t lied! He wouldn’t have had to endure this … this …” The sky outside darkens and crackles, and then lights up, crashing to a clap of thunder only an instant later, its echo booming through the chambers.

The Allfather pounds Gúngnir on the floor with a face twisted into a scowl and the ground shakes. “Calm your fiery temper, Odinson,” he blares. “This is no way for a future king to conduct himself under emotional pressure!”

Thor shakes under the impact of Odin’s voice and grinds his teeth in an attempt to compose himself. “Forgive me, father,” he stammers, even though his blood is still boiling with rage.

Odin gives another one of his unreadable nods. “Very well,” he says, tapping Gúngnir on the stone floor once more to illustrate that he is about to issue a command. “I will seek Heimdall’s counsel. Maybe he can locate your brother even though if what you told me is true and he returned to the same place in which he has remained hidden from Asgard’s gaze before, I do not nurture any hope that Heimdall will be able to detect his signature this time.”

The first thing Thor notices is that the Allfather has not yet spoken Loki’s name but then his heart plummets into his stomach when the meaning of Odin’s words register with him.

“But maybe we can find a way to locate the Space Stone locked inside the Tesseract,” Odin concludes.

“The humans,” Thor gasps, “they have designed a machine that can trace the cube’s signature! Maybe we can …”

Odin smiles at him and, all of a sudden, there is a spark of pity and fatherly concern in his all-seeing eye. “They have evolved astonishingly quickly during the past century and I can see why you would be amazed by their technological achievements,” he admits. “As am I. But they can only trace signals through transmitting masts and devices built across their own world. Their machinery will be of no use for us outside the Midgardian atmosphere.” He pauses. “Not yet, at least.”

Odin’s gaze travels to his wife. “You will study the Mind Stone. Extract the memories it gathered from Loki’s mind. If we shall be so lucky, they will tell us where he currently resides and where that being Thor spoke of resides and, as soon as we know, we are going to war.”

His father’s promise that he will take action is taking at least a little pressure off the Thundergod’s chest but even so, his muscles refuse to unclench because Loki, clearly, does not _reside_ anywhere. He _crawled_ back, on pure unconscious instinct, to a monster that broke open his mind and filled it with poison until he forgot his family and himself. To a monster that reduced his fiercely intelligent little brother’s entire existence to an unreasonable yearning for pain and hurt. Every fiber in Thor’s being screams at him that, at this very moment, Loki is most definitely back in that hellish place he has only glimpsed into when he has reached into his brother’s mind, back with that monster, and no one can tell what this monster will do to him this time … how he will …

His vision blurs and he squeezes his eyes shut to make the world stop spinning around him. When he forces his eyes open again, his parents are gazing at him with a concern and a compassion that is nearly unbearable.

“We will find him,” Frigga promises him softly. “We are not giving up this time.”

 _Does that mean that you **did** give up on him last time_? _Just like that_?

The question is on Thor’s mind but, even in his aggravated state, he understands that asking it will only exacerbate the situation. He forces a deep breath into his lungs and lets it out slowly. “How could that even … _happen_?” Thor whispers, his voice cracking. “Are there any … Can the Mind Stone … truly break a person’s mind? What if he won’t ever be …” _The same_ , he wants to say, but the thought is too atrocious to be given a voice.

“We must not lose hope,” is all Odin says before he turns around and leaves the chambers.

“Your brother is strong,” Frigga assures him as she takes a step towards Thor and squeezes his arm for comfort. “He is strong in ways none of us could even imagine before he fell into the void and I promise you that we _will_ find him. We will not let him suffer. Not again.”

“Can you … really make that promise?” Thor asks in a broken whisper and the weight of his failure to protect his younger brother is sitting so heavily on his chest that every breath he draws hurts like a mace in the gut.

The shadow of a smile ghosts the queen’s lips. “I can.” She squeezes his arm once more. “But I count on you to help me.”

* * *

He starts crawling away from the place where he landed, crawling towards the cave that he seeks and that he knows is not awfully far away, but then his body suddenly remembers that it can walk. Well, it does not really _remember_ in the truest sense of the word and neither does his mind. His body merely heals itself by drawing on the magic flowing through his veins that he remains unaware of until it cures at least the physical exhaustion to such an extent that he realizes he can stand.

He rises, drawing himself to his full height, and he starts to walk even if his legs are still wobbly. He does not notice. He merely walks, stumbles maybe, but he moves forward because there is that place he knows he needs to get to and that is the only thing that matters.

Because he needs to go back. He needs to …

“You!”

He startles and looks at the ugly creature who has just emerged in front of him, seemingly out of nowhere, but then again, isn’t it all nowhere out here where the only thing that matters is pain, and his mouth gapes open. No sound comes out. He does not know who this creature is. That creature who has its eyes covered by a dark leather hood.

“I cannot believe that you have come back,” the creature snarls and its pale white, or maybe gray, lips curl into a devious grin despite the absurd placement of a thin, golden construction of what might be an inefficient muzzle around its charred jaw. “And that you have brought us what the master most desires after all.” There is a shrill, horridly distorted laugh and, then, an abrupt pause. “ _Where_ is the scepter?”

He does not know what the creature means because he does not really know what _anything_ means anymore, so he merely stares.

“Tell me, outcast,” growls the creature, “ _where_ is the Mind Stone?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I am totally not rubbing my hands after I hit that "post" button on my computer. Nope. Not a chance. You must be imagining that.
> 
> PS: I might be showering the Brodinsons with all the angst and all the whump in the Nine Worlds on a daily basis but I never had and never will have the heart to go flat-out Infinity War on them. Just so you know.


	5. He must not speak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning really because the whump level is high and I already put all the trigger warnings in the tags but yes, there is gonna be blood and there is gonna be violence.

“Answer me,” the creature growls again and it is suddenly right in front of his face, seemingly without having moved or maybe its movements are too rapid for his eyes to process them. Its mouth is in a thin line as it raises its wrinkly white-gray hands with its two thumbs and lets it hover in the air, an inch from his cheek.

He does not flinch. He waits, waits for the pain, and it slams into his head like a lightning bolt igniting every single nerve in his brain. It hurts like a thousand burning needles stabbing into his temples and the face of the creature in front of him blurs into a fuzzy blotch.

He gasps for breath.

“Have you still not learned, outcast?” snarls the creature. “ _Where_ is the scepter?”

He says nothing because he thinks he remembers, or maybe it is merely some leftover commonsense or knowledge coming from deep inside his mind that once _truly_ was a mind, that this creature will inflict more pain upon him if he does not speak. No, he must not speak.

His lips twist into a smile.

“What is that sudden change in your attitude?” the creature growls and another explosion of pain erupts inside his skull, forcing him to double over with a grown. “Why are you, who could not hold your stinging tongue even under torture, suddenly as silent as a grave?”

He laughs a small breathless laugh. Little does this hideous creature in front of him know that words do not mean anything to him anymore. That they no longer make sense. That there are, quite simply, no words _left_ , not for him.

“Answer me! _Now_!”

His lips open but he forces them shut. No, he must not speak.

The creature draws even nearer and he shudders at the sourness of its foul breath when it places its icy palms against his temples and chants a wordless spell. His heart gives a violent lurch and then he feels hot tears welling into his eyes and spilling out of them, and he feels them sliding down his cheeks as an even sharper pain explodes throughout his body, his entire body, like a saw cutting through his flesh and ripping it open, and he crumples to the ground. His head slams onto the rock and he cries out in a high-pitched voice.

“Well, if you insist,” the creature mocks with a nasty leer and, from the corner of his eye, he can see the sparkling cube swishing through the air from where he has dropped it and into the creature’s hands in a blur of blues and whites on an invisible stream of magic. “I am sure the master will be delighted by your return.”

It bends down, grabs him by the ankles and drags him across the rugged plains, his skin scraping against the rocks.

* * *

Thor glances up from the book in front of him and blows out an exasperated breath. He shoots a glance at his mother, who has duplicated the fabric of the Mind Stone in a projection that must consist of at least one billion interwoven threads, glittering and gleaming in all shades of orange and yellow, hovering over the table upon which the treacherous gem rests. Frigga is staring at the projection in fierce concentration, reaching for traces of Loki’s magic that she can isolate. His mother does not need him for this task—she will need him to detect the monster’s signature that he has felt inside Loki’s head later—but she has given him thirty-two tomes, ancient and dusty, that contain information about the Infinity Stones and she has asked him to sift through them in case they could tell her something about the Mind Stone that has slipped her memory.

That task would normally fall to Loki and his little brother would gladly soak up the wisdom in these accursed books even if he knew, as Thor does now, that Frigga has no use for it. She knows everything there is to know about the stones. She has told him that they were in Odin’s possession at the dawn of the universe and that he built the Realm Eternal and the Bifröst with their magic. Until they stirred awake, truly awake, during the first Convergence that befell the Realms and the Allfather realized that they slowly corrupt the minds of their wielders with dark desires, omnipotence fantasies and a hunger for war and blood. That they had corrupted his own mind and that of … At this point, she has paused, thoughtfully, before telling him that Odin dispersed them, hid them, buried them to keep them safe but that, for the past years, with the threat of another Convergence looming on the horizon they have stirred awake again, seeking out new wielders. She has told him about how the gems communicate with one another and how the Tesseract had been buried on Midgard until it stirred awake and its energies began to plant thoughts of Asgard and the power of its Gods into the heads of those people that dwelt near it until a Nazi general officer succumbed to his delusions of grandeur and retrieved it to subjugate all of Midgard. She has told him how the cube has been on Midgard and more or less in the custody of S.H.I.E.L.D. ever since then and how the humans have tried to harness its energy throughout the years.

 _Yes, for building weapons of mass destruction_ , Thor has thought glumly.

She has told him that the Time Stone is on Midgard as well and that the Reality Stone, which has the form of an Aether, is safely buried—or not so safely anymore, come to think of it—and that the Power Stone is safely contained in an orb in a temple on a planet called Morag, which is covered entirely in oceans that swelled after a global warming catastrophe and prohibit access to its world except for a brief period of time every three hundred years, which has not yet come. 

No, the Queen of Asgard knows all there is to know about those gems and their powers and their history. She just wants Thor to feel useful because he feels like an utter failure and, more than that, she probably wants him near her to prevent him from storming off to hurl himself blindfold into a one-god rescue mission.

“May I ask you something?” Thor asks through clenched teeth.

Frigga blows out a breath and turns around to face him with a hesitant nod.

“Why did father almost crown me king when there is _so much_ that I apparently don’t know about the universe?” Thor begins and as soon as the first question has left his lips, more begin to pour out of his mind. “Why did he leave these stones to the humans if they’re truly that dangerous?” He glances at the Mind Stone and feels its hostile energies wafting through the air. “Does he want them to destroy themselves with that much power? And why didn’t he search for Loki after he fell? Why did he just accept his death?”

Frigga opens her lips to reply but Thor cuts her off with, “And don’t you dare to tell me that there is a purpose to everything that he does! I’m sick and tired of this non-answer. I’m sick and tired of your subterfuges and deceptions. I’m sick and tired of your pretense and your hypocrisy and your cowardice!” Falling into a sudden, unforeseen, intense fit of rage, he forcefully sweeps the books from the table and they clatter to the floor.

His mother’s forehead twists into a suspicious frown for a few seconds. “Oh no,” she gasps and then yells his name.

“What?” Thor roars.

Frigga jerks her head towards the gem and then his own mouth gapes open in understanding. It is happening again. Just as it did aboard the Helicarrier, the Mind Stone breeds discord among them. “The gem feasts on negative emotions,” Frigga explains, “but on anger most of all. Anger is its favorite meal. Here, let me protect your mind with a spell.”

“I don’t want your,” Thor begins but then he interrupts himself. “Wait, you can protect yourself against the influence of an Infinity Stone?”

His mother gives a nod and everything in Thor shatters once again when he realizes that Loki hasn’t done that. He hasn’t protected his mind against the ancient spellwork. He has willingly accepted … Thor exhales a shaky breath. No, he cannot go there. If he does, he will lose what little control he still has over his temper.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Thor says instead. “Just because this gem is messing with my mind doesn’t mean I’m not angry. He went through Hel, mother. Because of you.” Tears well into his eyes and creep into his voice. “You will see it, in his memories. You will see where he was and maybe _then_ you will understand what this lie did to him!”

“No day passed where I did not hold myself at fault for your brother’s death,” Frigga weeps. “You must know this, my son. I love Loki with my entire heart. He is my son and nothing will ever change that.”

“And he is my brother. But what good did our love do him, mother?” Thor bellows. “I mustn’t know anything. _You_ must understand. This isn’t about _you_. The lie you fed him, it destroyed him. It damaged his heart. He thinks he is a monster because he grew up hearing father’s stories …” His voice breaks. “Couldn’t you have at least stopped him from telling us these stories about how cruel and hideous and evil they are? From calling them Frost Giants? Why didn’t you at least call them Jötnar? Why didn’t you at least raise Loki in the belief that his birth race aren’t _monsters_ that deserve to be _slain_ by Asgard’s armies?”

Frigga buries her head in her hands and breaks into a convulsive sobbing.

“Forgive me, mother, but that really doesn’t feel like love to me,” Thor concludes and, suddenly, he feels empty, entirely empty, as if someone had taken a knife and carved out his essence. “I think you need to make a stand against father because if you don’t … if you don’t, Loki will never trust you again and neither will I.” He laughs mirthlessly. “To think that I thought you were the only one who can pull down this wall he has built around his mind? This family is so messed up.” He snorts another laugh. “And don’t think I didn’t notice that little part in your story where you interrupted yourself just in time to not spill another secret. Don’t think I don’t realize that this entire city is built on a foundation of lies and deceit. And you raised us to be _honest_.”

Frigga looks up at him with tear-stained cheeks and puffy eyes, her teeth pulling at her quivering lower lip. “You are right. I persuaded myself that—”

“You know what?” Thor cuts in. “Leave it be. I can’t hear that now. Just _find_ him.” Without as much as looking at her one more time, he storms out of the chambers.

* * *

“Asgard,” He finally rumbles after the cube has shown Him what transpired, His voice deep and threatening. Soothing, he thinks, but there is so much cruelty in that voice that his body shivers, shivers against his will, almost as if it dreads what is to come, as if it remembers something that his mind does not. He is standing in front of Him, his face, arms and torso pleasantly stinging from the freshly bleeding wounds that the rocks the creature has hauled him over have sliced into his skin. He has difficulties to keep himself upright but he remains standing, his hands cupping his elbows to counterbalance the swaying that his body does, also of its own accord, because he can’t lift his gaze off of Him. Off His broad shoulders; His muscular, unarmored arms; His giant purple hands that could crush his body beneath them if they wanted to.

“You allowed the scepter to be carried to _Asgard_ of all places by _Thor_ of all people?” He bellows, throwing his enormous hands up into the air. “And you have the boldness to return to me after you crawled back to the brother who abused you all your life but whom you still love too much to ever be your own man? Is that right, you pathetic little shrimp?”

He doesn’t know if that is right because Thor is not his brother and he doesn’t know why Thor thinks so. He is nobody’s brother, nobody’s son. He doesn’t really exist, does he, except that he does, somehow, but not really, not as someone who knows someone else even though he does know Thor, doesn’t he, he knows who Thor _is_ and that he is the son of the king of Asgard and why does he remember this if it doesn’t have anything to do with him and isn’t that curious.

“Answer me, wastrel!”

He wants to, wants to tell this man, this giant, that he is not Thor’s brother and that he doesn’t know why Thor treats him like he is but the words are too confusing and his scalp begins to trickle with the anticipation of a beating, distracting his attention, and so he merely lifts his shoulders in a shrug because he knows that shrugs make people angry.

“Answer me, you runt,” He spits and then lunges forward, grabbing him by the arms and shaking him so violently that his head snaps back and his vision begins to swim.

“He isn’t speaking, Sire,” the creature informs its master. “Hasn’t said a word.”

The master looks at him and studies his face, probably sees the smile of gratitude that is stealing onto his lips, he doesn’t know, because His face is a blur, and then he hears Him smack His lips before He grabs his face in His enormous hand and squashes until his jaw and cheekbones splinter.

He gives a wince of pain. Yes, this hurts and it is unbearable but that is how things must be. That is the only thing that matters even though he doesn’t understand why and it actually hurts too much, this one, and his eyes fill with tears again and he whimpers.

“Ooooh,” mocks the master. “If you don’t want to speak, you will hardly need your jaw, you scrawny little turd.” He squeezes one last time, forcing the sharp edges of broken bone through the soft flesh on the insides of mouth until he tastes blood, and then He flings him on the ground. “You know where to take him,” He snaps at the creature. “This time around, his gormless brother will come for him and when he does, I will squeeze the life out of him with my bare hands and I will force Loki to watch every second of it."

 _Loki_. There is that name again.

The blood trickles down his throat, thick and warm and salty, and spit fills his mouth but he is afraid to swallow because his face hurts too much as it is and what if he accidentally swallows a bone and he begins to think that it really wasn’t a good idea to return to Him because His pain is so much worse than he thought it would be but he can’t dwell on that for long because his consciousness is slipping away from him and then there is someone who yanks him off the ground by the shoulders, the creature possibly, and then he blacks out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, soooo, this is the first time ever that I had anyone blame Frigga to such an extent but, even though Thor's anger is fueled by the Mind Stone, he isn't wrong about the basics. I love Frigga with all my heart and I think she did the best she could considering the fact that Asgard is a patriarchic monarchy and that she doesn't have much of a choice when Odin says "So be it" but she still lied. She still enabled the emotional abuse and everything. And when I realized this, I actually cried. I mean, I do that sometimes when I write because, let's not kid ourselves, my writing IS intense most of the time, but putting myself in Thor's position, trying to feel what he feels ... Oh boy, that really knocked me out for a while there. And Loki, of course. I can see y'all sitting there, longing to get him out of there and wrap him in a blanket and tell him that everything is gonna be okay *sigh* 
> 
> And, dammit, it really isn't easy not to use ANY names in the parts with Loki's POV. Just so you know, it's annoying to write, lmao. But maybe it is annoying to read too, in which case, my sincere apologies.


	6. Strong for my brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm continuing down that road of blood, disturbance and violence, so please, if this makes you too emotional, I would advise you not to read it.

When he comes to, he knows that the pain he felt, however horrendous it might have seemed, really wasn’t _that_ horrendous and his body is already trying to heal itself, just as it always is, and _wait no_ , _do not take it away_ , he begs, silently, because he still does not dare to speak, _why would you take it away_. _Please, I need that_. _Do not take it away_. It is not only because he wants to be hurt. Yes, he does because there is no sensation quite like that type of hurt that rips through your entire body and sears your insides and makes your vision go white. The type that makes your entire being throb with that pain, every fiber reveling in the sensation of pain. Funny, that word, isn’t it, _pain_ , because the word itself is so meaningless and these four letters entirely lack the force and the warmth and the comfort of pain and that word cannot articulate in any way the sweet taste of blood on the tongue, that taste that causes you to gag at first because this is a violation, this is an attack on the integrity of your own self and that is dangerous and disgusting but then, when you have overcome that initial repulsion, it is so, so _sweet_. That word cannot articulate the noise of bones splintering and breaking and that satisfying sting that blades cause when they pierce the skin, that sting that is so _arousing_ that a warmth pours into your crotch, and that satisfyingly soundless hiss when your flesh tears open, and no, that doesn’t make sense, but it does, oh, yes, it does, of course it does because _that hiss, that tear, that split, yes, that SPLIT_ when your blood oozes out is everything, there is nothing that comes close to it, NOTHING, because when the blood oozes out of a wound and trickles down your skin and you smell that _stinging_ and _intoxicating_ smell of metal that hooks into the back of your throat, and he cannot even think anymore, nothing really makes sense except for this, THIS, THIS, THIS IS WHAT HE _WANTS_ AND WHAT HE _NEEDS_ because with the blood flows out some of his inner loathsomeness that his skin always hides from people when it fools them into believing that he is a person, that he is this Loki they speak of, when all he truly is underneath is a …

 _Laufeyson_.

It is just a name that comes to him from out of nowhere and he doesn’t know what it means or who that is but he knows it must mean something because the sound of that name almost makes him throw up in his mouth.

He gulps, his heart hammering against his ribs.

No, this is not only because he wants to be hurt. He deserves to be hurt. He _must_ be hurt. He is a despicable being that has done despicable things and, even if he cannot recall any affiliations with other people, he knows deep down that these other people—people like Thor, who claim to know him—think him vile and that he is not allowed to exist without punishment for what he is. He does not know exactly _what_ that is but he knows that he should not _be_ without that pain, that hurt, that blood. Or maybe he should be dead but death seems to elude him, doesn’t it, for he cannot seem to die no matter the wounds inflicted upon him, so he needs to have this. He _needs_ to. There is no other form of existence that is thinkable for one such as him.

He lifts his chin in expectation but the cave remains silent.

The cave remains silent for a long time.

He does not come back.

Why isn’t He coming back?

Why has He just left him here, like this, waiting, waiting for more?

This is unbearable, far more unbearable than a shattering jaw, and, finally, he does speak. “Hello?” The word comes out in a croak, his voice hoarse with disuse. “Please,” he whimpers. "Please, come back ... please.”

* * *

After having wrecked a pile of stones to rubble with his hammer outside the palace to quench the raging flames of his wrath, Thor returns to the chambers where his mother is still trying to isolate the threads of Loki’s glamour from the Mind Stone’s tapestry of magical signatures. To Thor’s surprise, Odin is there too, his head lowered, the expression on his face somber, and he feels his anger stir again but it is good that his father is there, isn’t it, because his father needs to understand the repercussion of their infamous lie even more than his mother does.

Frigga is focused on her work. She has extracted the threads of Loki’s memories from the main projection and has woven them into a separate one, which is approximately the size of a dinner plate and emanates an emerald sheen that conveys the uncanny sensation that his brother is in the room with them. Thor notices instantly that wielding the Mind Stone is taking a lot more out of his mother than he expected, for there are beads of sweat glistering on her pale face and she is swaying a little. His chest yawns open because he loves her so much and he knows, deep down, that she loves him and that she loves Loki too and that even though some of her actions scarred his little brother’s soul, she never _wanted_ him to hurt as deeply as he did and still does.

Thor feels tears stinging his eyes and he wipes his nose with the back of his hand.

“The Tesseract is not on any of the Nine Realms,” Odin informs him grimly.

“Then neither is Loki,” Thor concludes and his heart gives a lurch because if he isn’t, how will he ever find his little brother? “Heimdall cannot see him?” he asks even though he already knows the answer.

Odin pauses and there is something in that hesitation that pours a bucketful of ice water down the Thundergod’s back. “What?”

“Heimdall fears,” Odin begins and his voice hitches.

“What?” Thor repeats, louder this time, a hostile tone creeping into his voice.

“Heimdall fears that the essence of him might be gone,” Odin says quietly and for the first time ever since Loki let go of his need to prove his worth to him, Thor can hear an ounce of grief in his father’s voice, “for Loki’s soul was veiled when he came back with you earlier. Heimdall only saw yours.”

The words slam into his gut with the force of a battering ram because he realizes in that instant, truly realizes, not only suspects or assumes, that there is the possibility that Loki will stay like this. That there is the possibility that Loki’s mind will remain in pieces and that his intelligence and his wit and humor and his extraordinary perception and his sensitivity and his emotions and his genius and his cunning and just the essence of who he was—the trickster God, the God of Mischief, the agent of chaos that runs afoul of labels and natural laws and social expectations—will remain forever lost to him. That even if Thor saves him from that monster, Loki will never be Loki again.

“We mustn’t lose hope that he will come back to us,” Frigga says and her voice is thick with uncried sobs. She gazes at her spellwork and draws a trembling breath. “I think it is done.”

“I am sorry, mother,” Thor whispers.

Frigga shakes her head. “No, you were absolutely right, my love.” She flicks a glance at Odin. “Loki has always been troubled. There has always been something … dark and destructive lurking inside his mind, something that he himself never fully understood. I could have taught him better if he had known the truth.”

Odin shakes his head. “I don’t think so. His mind has always been doomed.”

“How dare you say that his mind is _doomed_?” Thor howls, even though maybe it is doomed now but that is not what Odin meant and Thor’s fingers curl into fists. Odin’s eye narrows at him once more but this time, the God of Thunder will not be silenced. “You denied him your love and your esteem even when it mattered the most to him. He let go because you didn’t find it in you to show him that you care about him. He committed _suicide_ , father. _Suicide_. He was ready to die because he thought that you never loved him because he is a Jötunn monster!”

“Your son is right,” says Frigga softly. “We drove Loki to this.”

Odin grumbles but he doesn’t say anything.

“You will see,” Thor tells his father with his eyes on the glimmering green of his brother’s glamour. Frigga nods softly, hesitantly, and then she chants a spell and the tapestry of her sons memories flickers until it reveals a glimpse into Loki’s mind, or rather, revealing the world how Loki saw it through his eyes and Thor almost feels his legs giving out.

At first, the thoughts and memories or whatever it is don’t seem to be in any order, they’re just flashes of something that Loki saw, snippets of dialogue that he heard, tumbling over one another in rapid succession but then something materializes and it is a face, a purple face, inches from Loki’s, with scars and a charred skin and eyes that are so full of cruelty and malice that Thor shudders because now this monster has a face. A face that he will beat to a bloody pulp with his hammer. “Tell me: Where are the Infinity Stones, Asgardian?”

And they hear Loki’s voice even though it sounds different because that is how Loki hears his own voice from inside his skull, “I do not even know what Infinity Stones _are_.”

“Liar,” snarls the monster. “Your father possessed them and you will tell me where they are now!”

“Which father?” And he chuckles. By all the Realms, he chuckles and Thor misses that chuckle so much that his chest yawns open at the thought that he might not ever hear it again.

The monster slaps him across the cheek so violently that Thor can hear Loki’s mandible splinter. His stomach lurches. Frigga’s face loses all color. Odin’s teeth pull at his lip.

And Loki? Loki laughs and says, “If you think I will crack just because you are hurting me, you are in for quite the disappointment, I’m afraid.”

The monster narrows his cruel eyes at him and then stands, drawing himself to his full height, murmuring, almost intimately, “Let us see about that,” before he walks away and Loki’s gaze follows him.

“Thanos.” Odin spits the name like venom. “The Mad Titan.”

Frigga’s forehead twists into a frown. “Who is that?”

“He is ancient,” the Allfather begins. “Maybe older than me.”

“He is so huge,” Thor mumbles without really hearing his father’s words because all he sees is that eight feet tall purple abomination with hands that could crush bones like mere twigs and all he remembers is Loki’s soft, dreamy smile when he begged Captain America not to stop hurting him and he understands, well, not really because that would be too painful and his brain is trying to protect him from that, but he is aware that those hands … that those hands … and Loki is back there now, isn’t he, he wanted to … and by Odin’s Ravens, this Thanos creature is so huge, with muscles like uru and he must weigh at least twelve-hundred pounds and Loki can’t think of anything else than wanting to be hurt … and this creature … and his brother lost the scepter and that creature will be angry and … his father’s voice fades into a muffled murmur, as if he is talking from underwater, and then his vision blurs and …

“Thor?”

He opens his eyes and realizes that he is now on the floor and Frigga and Odin are kneeling beside him on either side. His mother places a hand on his cheek and he can feel the warmth of her glamour seeping through his skin but then he jerks away from her touch.

“No,” Thor whispers. “You need your strength.”

“So do you,” Frigga whispers back, her eyes wet and shiny.

“I am alright,” Thor says. _Loki needs me and I must stay strong for my brother_. He glances at the projection. “Please, mother. Continue.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I am absolutely drained and emtpy now. Bye *Nicky out*


	7. He did not break easily

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor, Frigga and Odin will see how exactly Loki was tortured by Thanos. So, there's gonna be physical violence and emotional abuse. Trigger warning etc. etc.

Frigga complies and then Thor has to watch Loki’s terror unfold on this odd magical screen conjured up by his mother’s glamour. His _entire_ nightmare, not merely the few glimpses he saw before, no, the whole experience. Well, maybe not all of it, and maybe not necessarily in the right order, for memories consist of layers that may be in disorder once you strip them away and isolate them, Frigga has said, but what he has to watch is by far the most horrid, most sickening thing he has ever had to witness. Thor knows that he is violating his brother’s privacy and he knows that if Loki ever finds out that he _knows_ … If the old Loki is still alive somewhere inside that thin, brittle shell he has been reduced to and if that Loki finds out that his big brother _saw_ how he was physically and emotionally tortured into submission by Thanos and a sorcerer he calls The Maw, chained to a wall in a cave like some wild beast, he will be furious.

Thor gulps because Frigga was right, earlier, about Loki’s strength. He did not break easily.

At first, Loki continued jesting and even challenging the titan, telling him that no matter what he would do to him, it would not matter because his body would heal itself anyway and that he was welcome to try but would soon realize that torture was pointless. He told him too that he had no knowledge of the Infinity Stones and the Maw bristled at this, accusing him of safeguarding the information inside his mind because he could smell the stench of Loki’s memory protection spell. The sorcerer tried to break open his mind with the force of mind bolts then, and Loki’s high-pitched, blood-curdling outcries of pain fill the chambers but in between these cries, he is laughing, _giggling_ almost, and he sneers at them that his magic is more powerful than theirs and that they are not _capable enough_ to break any of his spells. Thor can almost see him say this, can almost see his little brother’s defiant stare and that flicker in his eyes that always sparkles in them when he is in danger, but there is something in his voice telling Thor that, even back then, he yearned to be beaten. That after he decided to end his life and discovered that death did not want him yet, he was looking for someone else to finish what the void had not.

“He wants them to do this,” gasps Frigga and her face turns even paler, if that is at all possible. Odin loops an arm around her shoulders and presses her close.

 _He wants to be hurt_ , Thor agrees silently but he doesn’t dare to give the thought a voice.

“Why do you not just use the gem on him, Sire?” asks the hideous creature named the Maw.

“Because that would be too easy,” replies Thanos and there is a flicker of such evil in these eyes that Thor’s blood runs cold at the sight. The titan then bends down to Loki, his face a mere inches from that of his brother, and his tone is almost intimate when he says, “I want to break him myself and be it just to wipe that arrogant smile off his delicate little face.” And for a few agonizing seconds, Thor is convinced that the titan will run his fingers through Loki’s hair or cup his chin or just touch his cheek with those ginormous purple hands, and he almost goes blind with disgust.

“I’d like to see you try,” Loki replies and Thor can hear the smug grin in his voice.

Yes, Thanos tried. He had to make a real effort to break Loki’s will and it took him a while, it took him far too damn long, and Thor feels sicker every time he sees the titan appear in front of Loki’s eyes because every time, he tortures him with a different method when he arrives because the old one did not work. At first, he breaks his bones, breaks them repeatedly, taking Loki’s wrist and bending it backwards until his bones splinter with a loud crack, like twigs that you break in the forest, the noise echoing through the air, and Loki screams but he stops screaming eventually. Then, he puts his brother’s fingers in a thumbscrew and crushes them slowly, with a voracious grin on his lips as his face is so sickeningly close to Loki’s, and Thor imagines his foul breath on Loki’s cheeks and vomit shoots up his throat again, and Loki screams but he stops screaming eventually.

When physical pain does not make an impact, Thanos leaves him in complete isolation in the dark for what must have been days or even weeks without any water, food or light. When he finally comes back, Loki’s vision is blurry at the edges and his memories are no longer clearly separable. From then on, Thanos arrives and leaves again, his frame and face smudgy and out of focus, his voice strangely distorted. He has the scepter with him sometimes and when he does, he unleashes the power of the Infinity Stone onto his brother and the projection vibrates, and Loki screams, and Thor can almost feel his pain. At one point, Frigga starts crying, sobbing really, sobbing _hysterically_ , when Thanos holds a torch up to Loki’s face and scorches his skin with a smile of deep satisfaction playing upon his lips, and these cries are the worst, they are ear-shattering and mind-numbing and sickening, and Thor fiercely longs for the ability to teleport so that he can save his brother from going through all of that again even though he wants to go through that again, _especially_ because he wants to go through that again, because there is no way the God of Thunder will let anyone treat his baby brother like this ever again; least of all himself.

Yet, just as Loki predicted, his body heals itself after every assault, ever more slowly each time but it does heal itself eventually, and it doesn’t give up on him no matter what Thanos does to him. It doesn’t give up on him when Thanos drives a blade deep into his flesh and peels the skin away. It doesn’t give up on him when Thanos crushes his bones or stretches his limbs. It doesn’t give up on him when Thanos beats him senseless or chokes him or puts a rag over his face and then pours water on it, leaving him gasping for air and coughing and swallowing and gurgling. It doesn’t give up on him when Thanos pours poison down his throat from a brass goblet and leaves him writhing on the floor like a snake after he has ingested all of it.

 _Your brother is strong_. _He is strong in ways none of us could even imagine before he fell into the void_.

Next to Thor, Frigga is sobbing through tightly clenched lips, tears running freely down her cheeks, but she still holds the glamour in place with a calm determination that the God of Thunder could never hope to maintain in such a state of emotional turmoil.

And, finally, after an unbearably long time, the Mad Titan realizes the truth.

“I think I know now why I can’t break you,” says Thanos and he laughs, at himself mostly, because it has taken him such a damnably long time to figure it out. He sits down next to Loki, the scepter by his side, and then he _actually_ takes a strand of Loki’s hair and almost gently tucks it behind his ears and Thor feels a wave of seething, hot anger submerge him. “You are a weak, pathetic little worm and you cherish this. All of your arrogance and your bravado, it’s false.” He snorts a laugh. “All of it. You hate yourself.”

Loki’s head snaps up at this. “Congratulations,” he whispers and the tremble in his breathless voice leaves no doubt as to the condition his lungs are in. “What are you … waiting for … then?” He has to pause to draw a shaky breath. “Get … on with it.”

“No.” Thanos smiles at him and Thor’s hands clench into fists until his fingernails cut into the skin of his palms. “It doesn’t have to end here, you know,” says Thanos, almost solemnly, his voice suddenly sounding as if he _cares_ about Loki. “Like this, with you succumbing to your weakness. If you tell me where the stones are, I will help you regain your strength. Your purpose.”

“I have no purpose,” Loki croaks.

“Not anymore, clearly,” the titan snickers. “For if you had, the Allfather would have come for you by now, isn’t that so?”

A soft, unguarded wail escapes Loki’s lips and, just like that, he has revealed his sore spot after holding himself at an emotional distance all this time.

Next to Thor, Odin makes an unidentifiable sound that might have been a choked sob.

“Ah.” Thanos smiles and Thor shudders at the malice in his voice. “I see.” He pauses for effect. “The Allfather has wronged you like he has so many others.”

A weak laugh escapes Loki’s lips but he remains silent.

“You are his _son_ , though, aren’t you?”

Loki shakes his head but he starts crying then, a soft whimpering at first that evolves into convulsive sobbing very quickly and, it no longer matters to him, Thor thinks, because he has already given himself away anyway and he might as well break down now that Thanos has finally seen through him. The lips of the titan curl into a devious, self-satisfied grin when he finally watches Loki crack after all this time, and Thor feels bile on his tongue and he glances at Odin, out of whose all-seeing eye spills a single tear as he cradles his sobbing wife to his side.

Loki remains silent for what feels like an eternity and, eventually, Thanos does pick up the scepter and carefully raises its tip to Loki’s chest and then, Thor figures, he glimpses into his memories, for understanding flashes across the titan’s purple face. “You see,” he says, “I was cast out of my own home as well because my people thought me mad. Different. Dangerous. But the problem with these people is that they are scared of people like us,” he continues and Thor bristles at his poisonous words. “People who are smart and think ahead and are willing to make sacrifices that no else would because they are slaves to their own foolish morality. They are small-minded and jealous. The reason people like them don’t want people like us is not because we are unworthy but because they are in awe of our greatness.”

Loki makes a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh.

“I can help you find your purpose,” Thanos repeats, inching closer to him. “They cast me out and it made me stronger. It helped me grow. I can help you grow the same way. I can help you make them realize that what they see in you, what you yourself see in you, that pathetic little bundle _I_ see cowering before me now, is not all there is to you. If you help me, I guarantee you that they will fear you. Thor, Odin and everyone else who thought you weak will tremble before your strength. I will help you gain the esteem that you seek. The esteem that you _deserve_.”

There is silence, then, a long silence.

“How?” Loki croaks at last.

“We will simply have to make them understand that your strength is different from theirs,” says Thanos and Thor’s entire body tenses with dread. “But that it is so much more _valuable_ than theirs.”

“The Tesseract … was buried … on Midgard,” Loki finally whispers and, then, inexplicably and to Thor’s greatest shock, he drops his head and rests it against the titan’s armored chest and Thanos holds him with a condescending grin on his lips. Thor’s heart leaps into his throat and out of his mouth at the sight of that intimate gesture, that almost fatherly _embrace_ that Loki has been craving for so long. That abomination is really _holding him_ after he has finally broken his proud, intelligent, stubborn, sharp-tongued little brother’s will, not with physical torture, no, because Loki proved too strong, too proud and too persistent for that. The Norns be damned, Thanos has broken him by using his need for approval against him even after _insulting_ him. The approval Odin and Thor himself have failed to give him in the past. And now Loki is seeking His comfort again, Him with that accursed capital H, because Thanos used his emotional vulnerability against him in order to … in order to … A furious roar escapes the Thundergod’s lips and thunder rumbles across the sky outside the palace.

“Earth,” Loki continues, his words coming out muffled against the titan’s chest, and Thor can hardly restrain himself from laying waste to the entire palace. “In a country … called Nor…way.”

“See?” A self-satisfied smirk appears on that monster’s face. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Where are the others?”

Loki tells him and as soon as Thanos has obtained the knowledge he desired, he shows Loki the scepter and teaches him how to wield it and Loki slowly regains his strength and, as he does, the bright emerald signature in Frigga’s projection slowly pales into faint shades of green. Thor begins to understand then that the Mind Stone has not caused whatever happened to Loki. Quite the contrary, the Mind Stone has _fueled_ his broken, fractured soul that yearned for nothing but pain, suffering and death, rekindling his anger and his will to live with false memories. Memories that now flare up in random flashes across the projection. Flashes of Thor throwing him into the abyss and calling him a monster. Of Odin telling him that he no longer has a place in Asgard now that _he had to_ seek out the truth and _why did you have to seek out that knowledge, you intractable little runt, how can your mother still look at you the same way now that she knows that you know, will you ever learn, you brought this upon yourself, oh Loki, why could you not do all of us a favor and hide that despicable side of yours?_

 _No, I will not be treated like this! I **refuse** to be treated like this_. _I am a **God**_. _They **have to** fear me_.

 _If you subjugate Midgard and reclaim the Tesseract for me, they will_. _I promise you that they will_.

 _They will **fear** me_.

Yes, the Mind Stone has sustained him with the need for revenge all this time when Loki sought nothing but pain and punishment for his origins, and he has traveled to Midgard on its fuel, unleashing the Chitauri against the mortal population because he believed it would make him rise in _their_ esteem; Thor’s and Odin’s. Yet, once Thor dispersed the gem’s influence, _taking away_ that fuel, Loki transformed back into that shattered, broken creature that, by some sick and cruel twist of fate, landed in the titan’s lair, longing to be beaten.

Loki’s current condition is not the titan’s or the Mind Stone’s fault, Thor realizes and his stomach gives a violent lurch when he does. It is _his_ and Odin’s, and maybe that of the other Asgardians.

“Do you see now how,” begins Thor, his voice tick with rage and held back tears, but he can’t finish his accusation because Frigga’s eyes have closed and she crumbles against Odin’s chest, the projection of Loki’s memories evaporating into the air as consciousness slips away from her and both of his parents slump to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, soooo, I feel like I have been making it sound as if this would be far more horrible than it actually was but, truth be told, I can't really tell any longer. I don't know if his chapter truly was graphic, horrific, disturbing etc. What I can tell you is that I thought about Thanos's relationship with Gamora and his other children and how he always did his best to appear like their father and savior and then I thought about how I made it sound as if Loki had that really special, almost intimate connection with Thanos, and then I thought about how he could have maybe appeared to Loki in a similar way during the time Loki spent with him, and this came out of it. Yay, Stockholm syndrome. But, yes, I also shuddered when I wrote Loki actually leaning against his chest and I think I might have even gagged because ... well ... ugh. 
> 
> Anyway, this is probably the last chapter I'm gonna be able to write/publish before going to London for ten days on Friday, but the fic is almost finished in my head (minus the specifics of how EXACTLY things will go down) and I will continue with it later. 
> 
> That said, see y'all soon (I hope) xoxo


	8. He can hurt himself just fine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, here is another chapter that I mainly wrote on the plane/airport on no sleep and no food with merely black coffee sustaining me. I just edited it after I finally slept and am moderately satisfied with it, so I thought I might as well post it.
> 
> [tw self-harm]

The cave remains silent as the family he no longer knows witnesses the abuse that his former fully conscious self has suffered and that he doesn't remember either. Well, a part of his mind does remember, yes, not in words or images but in those preverbal sensations that primarily stir up bodily reactions instead of _actual_ memories, yet that part doesn't think of whatever has happened to him as abuse. No, that part, the part that is keeping him alive, he muses, for nothing else in his mind will make sense except for this peculiar urge to have Him return and inflict more pain, _please, please, come back, you must come back,_ that part thinks of what has happened and is still happening to him as something rewarding and deeply, oh so deeply gratifying. 

Which is why his softly whispered pleas mutate into grotesquely distressed, almost panicked outcries as soon as his jaw has fully healed itself, his voice bouncing against and ricocheting off the walls of the cave. 

He screams and shouts and shrieks, crying himself hoarse because _why is there only silence and darkness, this is not right, isn't it it, no, there must be_ ** _more_** **_pain_** , and so he shrieks, crying for Him, for anyone really, it matters not, no, it doesn't, as long as _somebody_ comes, and so he keeps shrieking until his throat itches and he can hardly draw another breath but that is pain too, isn't it, _and_ _how odd that pain comes in so many different forms, bringing comfort in so many different ways, some of them sweet and small, some of them overwhelming or mind-numbing or exhilarating or even arousing, yes, that is clearly_ ** _the best pain_** _, there is no arguing about that_ , _is there, no, not all,_ and he cries out some more until his throat is raw and his voice cords are shredded, and, suddenly, he is hit by one single thought that pierces through the inexplicable haze enshrouding his brain. 

_I don't need Him, for I can hurt myself_. 

The realization, and this time it really is one, for he is suddenly consciously aware that he _could_ do that, by _himself_ , that he doesn't _need_ anyone to give him that sensation and, all be damned, the thought slams into him like a wave. 

He tries to stand, aprubtly, but something with sharp edges is holding his wrists and his head in place, cutting into his skin, and he glances down and sees that his arms are behind his back and that he is in chains. He becomes aware of the cool metal against the skin of his throat and a smile lights up his entire face and then he jerks his head forward with such force that the metal almost crushes his throat and his vision blurs instantly. 

Yes, he can hurt himself _just fine_. 

As soon as the wave of pain subsides, he becomes aware of the cave wall behind him, of the sharp edges of its rocks, and he smiles again and slams his head backwards and this is even better, yes, _this is_ **_so much_ ** _better_ because there is _that_ split and _that_ blinding _explosion_ of pain inside his head that ripples through his entire body and there is _that_ sweet, cloying, iron smell of blood and then there is nothing but stars erupting in front of his vision in a sea of whiteness until this sensation fades as well and he has to do it again. 

And again. 

And again. 

And again. 

Until, finally, someone comes for him. 

* * *

“Do you see now how your lack of concern drove him to this?” Thor spits at his father as soon as the Asgardian healers haven taken care of his mother, who has not only burned down her glamour but has also, he fears, succumbed to the full emotional impact of her grief. The fact that there is nothing he could have done for her, enrages and numbs the God of Thunder in equal measure and the fact that he has contributed to Loki's descent into this peculiar state of pain-seeking emotional catatonia enrages and numbs him even more. Which is why, with these feelings threatening to overpower him, he subconsciously channels all his anger and throws it at Odin because it is so much easier to be mad at _him_ . “He needed fatherly affection so desperately that he sought comfort in the arms of someone who _tortured_ him!" Those words taste like a rotting cadaver on his tongue and Thor gags, seemingly for the millionth time. 

“It is hardly _my_ fault that your brother is too frail and too sensitive to be raised as the son of someone whose position forbids him to concern himself with matters of the heart all day long,” Odin barks and his voice is shaky but Thor chooses to ignore that. “I did not shower _you_ with praise and attention either but as far as I recall, you did not throw yourself off the Bifröst! Do you want to know why?” Odin jabs a finger into his chest and Thor takes an involuntary step backwards. “Because your mind doesn’t work against you the way your brother’s mind has always worked against _him_ and I will not be blamed for the frenzies of his twisted mind. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes.” Thor forces a deep breath into his lungs to calm himself down. It takes him a lot of effort but he knows that there is no getting through to this accursed old bastard’s head anyway, there never has been, and, more importantly, mutual accusations and senseless bickering will not bring Loki home. “So, where does Thanos live?”

“I do not know,” says Odin.

“You’re lying,” Thor spits even though he is not entirely sure if that is indeed the case but he does not care either way because there is only one thing that matters to him. “You know of Thanos. So, _where_ is his lair?”

“I do not know,” his father insists. “There is nothing in Loki’s memories that would have given his location away. This asteroid formation, it could be anywhere in the vast space between the branches of Yggdrasil.”

“So, _how_ are we going to _find_ him if you don’t know where Thanos lives and Heimdall can’t see Loki and Loki's shutting even _mother_ out of his mind?” Thor bellows, his emotions submerging him, blinding him to any reason or logic, because if he does not find Loki soon, if he does not rescue him soon, his little brother will suffer through all of that pain again and he will have failed to protect him from that agony _again_ , and he cannot fail him _again_. He simply cannot fail Loki again. That is the only thought he can clearly grasp, the only thought in the whirlwind of thoughts pelting through his head that has meaning to him. “How …” His words trail off because, suddenly, he has an idea. Well, maybe not an idea, but a thought is forming just below the level of his consciousness.

“I believe the Mind Stone can give us the answer,” Odin says after a pause. “It has knowledge of this place and we will find it and once we do, Asgard will go to war against Thanos.”

“And how long will _that_ take?” Thor cries out.

“As long as it takes,” Odin replies curtly.

“As long as it _takes_?!” echoes Thor, his blood boiling with rage once more because his father acts so indifferently and because he himself has been equally indifferent in the past and it has cost Loki everything, causing him to let go and fall into Thanos’s lap and, by Odin’s ravens, his mother has had to _watch_ all of what happened to her beloved son, she has had to _watch_ her son being beaten and torched and poisoned and mentally raped, and Thor knows deep down that it is his fault too that Loki shut down like this and if he doesn’t save him soon ... “Loki might not _have_ that long!” And then, the thought emerges from his subconscious. “You _need_ to send me to him like you did before! With the help of your dark magic."

“And then what?” Odin hisses. “Don’t be rash. Thanos cannot be fought by one being alone, be they God or man, not even by you. He gained control of the deadliest armies. Not only the Chitauri but also the Sakaarians and the Outriders. He is one of the most powerful beings that has ever existed in this universe. We must proceed with care.”

“You really have no heart,” Thor whispers, his chest yawning open in the face of his father’s cold-heartedness. “How can you make a decision such as this? After _everything_ you just saw?”

“Once you are king, you will hopefully understand that, sometimes, your duty requires you to put the well-being of all before that of one,” Odin replies in that cryptic non-answer way of his.

“That is _not_ what I asked!” Thor howls, almost choking on his own guilt. “Does Loki truly mean so little to you? Did you ever _love_ him?”

“I did,” says Odin.

“And do you still have love for him?” Thor asks even though he dreads the answer.

“I am trying,” his father replies, almost matter-of-factly, “but you know as well as I do that he is making it incredibly hard to love him at times.”

“How can you,” Thor begins but he does not find the right words, any words really, to transform his emotions into speech.

“How can I?” Odin continues and he frowns at him in such a condescending manner that Thor subconsciously arrives at a decision. “What has instilled in you this sudden change of heart, my son? Because, as far as I recall, you have not questioned any of this a year ago. And let us not forget that _you_ have not exactly showered your brother with love or recognition either when the two of you were growing up.”

Thor exhales a deep breath to calm himself but it does nothing to quench the raging fires of his wrath. “I only treated him like this because I aspired to be like _you_!” He snorts a desperate laugh and tears well into his eyes because, the Norns be damned, the truth in his father’s words pierces his heart like a thousand needles enchanted with the cold flames of Hel. “Ever since we were little, you pitted us against each other and there was only one way I could win this game and that was by …” Thor almost chokes on the words and he abandons them, instead opting for, “You set Loki up for his breakdown. It was you who …” But words fail him again because words have a nasty way of doing just that whenever the heart is concerned and Thor’s heart is about to rupture at this very moment.

“I did no such thing,” Odin barks and Thor flinches from the intensity in his father’s voice. “That is your rage and your grief talking! If you do not learn to listen to reason any time soon, you will never ascend to the throne!”

“I don’t care about the norndamned _throne_ ,” cries Thor. “The only thing I care about is to get my brother home safely!”

“And we will,” says Odin and there is a hardly discernible undertone of compassion to his gruff voice. “But your mother needs to rest before we do and you need to rest as well.”

“Rest,” Thor snorts. As if he could _rest_ his head on a pillow now and close his eyes without seeing Loki lean against that purple creature's chest after it broke every bone in his body with a malicious grin on its lips. _"_ I will try, _"_ he promises his father all the same and Odin gives an almost solemn nod. 

But the God of Thunder does not try. He walks out of the royal chambers, passing the doors to his own chambers without flicking as much as a glance at them, and strides towards the Hall of Yggdrasil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so, it's a completely new thing for me to write Odin and I was really unsure about the line "I am trying to love him but he's making it incredibly difficult" that I even ran a Twitter poll regarding whether or not I should keep it. 68% said yes, so here it is. You guys have decided.
> 
> And yay, cliffhanger(s)!!! I don't know when the next chapter will be up, probably after my vacation. Stay tuned xo


	9. He doesn't exist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, sooo, first of all, I want to thank you all so much for your support. It means a lot to me that y'all seem to like this story so much and I enjoy reading your comments even if I don't always reply to them because I often don't know what else to say except for "Thank you" or "You are absolutely right" or something like this. But I do appreciate and cherish every single one of them.
> 
> Now, since my vacation got cut short (*flicks angry side-glance at the corona virus*), I have a lot of time on my hands, so without further ado, here's the next chapter. Please, enjoy.

The person who enters the cave isn’t Him and, come to think of it, it isn’t even a _person_. Not what he thinks of as a person anyway. Rather, it’s another hideous creature with a long face with ridges on its forehead and around the eyes, which is all he can make out at first because his head is throbbing and his vision is blurry, and he has to blink several times before the creature’s features become sharp enough for his eyes to process them. The first thing he notices is that it has no nose, which, for some reason, sends a chilly trickle creeping down his spine. It has gossamer white hair and gray skin just like the other creature lurking in wait for him upon his arrival, and it is wearing similar dark charcoal armor with golden ornaments on his chest and around his neck. This creature’s eyes, however, aren’t covered by a hood and his attention focuses on the feral malice in their washed-out blue. 

Malice, yes. All the beings living out here under His command—out here where there is nothing but pain and that peculiar darkness that is both stimulating and unnerving and that certainly seeped into every fiber of the granite he is sitting on, for he _senses_ their malice, yes, even if he isn’t consciously aware of it, but his body _knows_ , it just _does_ —they have all done unspeakable things and they all thrive off the pain they have caused others and this creature is no exception, no, certainly not, this creature _will_ hurt him if it must and his loins stir at the thought. 

He straightens and tries to lock eyes with it but his vision blurs again as soon as he lifts his head as much as an inch.

“What did the Mind Stone do to you that all you seek is pain now, hm, you pathetic little princeling?” asks the creature and he can see that there isn’t only malice in those eyes. There is a glint of curiosity in them as well and a hunger for knowledge. Yes, that creature is intelligent in ways the others are not. Intelligent and thus more dangerous. More vicious. 

His stomach gives such a lurch of anticipation that he can feel the blood surging to his groin and he smiles at the creature, keeping his lips sealed because that is what he must do, yes, he must _not_ speak, that is right, and so he keeps smiling as the creature inches closer with an evil smile on its thick, dark gray lips. It bends down and places its palms inches from his cheeks as the other creature has done before, chanting wordlessly, and he is simultaneously bracing himself up and longing for the impact of a bolt of incomprehensible force slamming into him and setting his brain on fire but that is not what happens.

That is not … Confusion obfuscates his mind for the fraction of a second and then he gasps out in horror when he realizes that all the pain throbbing through his head gradually _subsides_ because his body begins to heal itself, healing itself to such an extent that there is no longer even a dull ache or any sign of exhaustion. Not that he knows what exhaustion or confusion _mean_ , not exactly, no, but he realizes with absolute terror that his body no longer seems to be _there_ because there is no feel to it now that the pain is gone and how can that _be_ and what did that miserable creature smirking at him with those disgusting lips do to him and _how is that even possible,_ _oh no, what are you doing, no, you can’t do this to me, you can’t do this, you **can’t** , you can’t take it away, oh please, nooooooooo_.

* * *

Meanwhile, Thor notices at the edge of his consciousness that someone is following him but all reasonable thoughts he might have had are instantly drowned in the stormy sea of his rage and guilt—by all the Realms, the guilt is the worst, because his father _was_ right and he _did_ contribute to Loki’s meltdown and _I am sorry_ , _brother_ , _I am **so** sorry_—and he doesn’t care who will try to stop him. He doesn’t think anyone _could_ stop him if they tried. Not even Odin. _Especially_ not Odin.

Memories of their childhood and of who Loki was before he let go of his life on Asgard are flooding Thor’s mind as his rage propels him forward: His little brother in his study, cross-legged on the windowsill, forehead pinched in concentration as his brain sponged up the information in the book of sorcery in his lap. The flicker of intelligence in his bright emerald eyes when he smiled. That one time he shapeshifted into a bird and pooped on Tyr’s head to make Thor laugh. The way he used to frown at Thor over the rim of his wine goblet at dinner because of his wolfish appetite and his non-existent manners with that excruciatingly smug look on his slender face. The way he fought with his daggers, fighting as swiftly, gracefully and lethally as a feline. The way they fiercely protected each other before Loki’s self-rejection began to corrode his mind. That one time he shapeshifted into a cat, tiptoed up to the Lady Sif, who was sitting in the garden brooding after they’d had a fight, and prowled around her legs until she lifted him up and cuddled him and told him exactly why she was mad at Thor, which Loki then proudly told him.

He doesn’t recall when exactly Loki changed, can’t remember when his brother’s smart, intense, mischievous mind turned darker, and his guilt and his rage for letting that happen, for _causing_ it to happen, for abandoning his little brother along the way and making him feel so unloved and so unwanted and so un _worthy_ that throwing himself into the abyss of space and into the arms of death seemed like the sole escape, _that_ rage is all-consuming. He has always been quick to anger but this time, his wrath is gnawing at his heart with sharp fangs and he can hardly breathe and he knows that he will not rest for even one second as long as Loki’s beautiful mind lies in ruins.

* * *

“Nooooo!” he howls and his words almost tumble over themselves. “Give it _back_! You _must_ give it back!”

“No,” replies the creature with that horrible grin on its lips. 

He wants to jerk his head back, wants to slam it against the wall of the cave once more, wants the comfort back because he _must_ have it back, he needs it, he can’t exist without it, can he, no, how could he _ever_ exist without it, but he can no longer move his head or the rest of his body. He tries to, several times, but to no avail. The creature has immobilized him. It has not only taken away the pain but also his _ability_ to do hurt _himself_ and now there is nothing left. 

_Nothing_.

This creature has hollowed him out, leaving only a brittle shell that is as fragile as thinly blown glass, maybe even more frail than that because he doesn’t feel significantly more substantial than a spirit, which stirs up a panic that rises from the pits of his stomach until it reaches his heart and squeezes it violently. He can’t exist like this. He doesn’t know who or what he could even _be_ without … without … no, he needs … A raw and desperate whimper escapes his lips. “Please …”

“No,” repeats the creature. “You will not be given what you seek after you foiled Sire’s plan.”

“Please,” he whimpers again, his voice swelling with despair as tears well into his eyes. His existence depends on this. Why doesn’t this creature understand, why can’t it _see_ , that he _cannot_ exist like this? That the frail shell housing his fractured mind will shatter if it doesn’t give the pain back? “Please!” he screeches. “ ** _Please_**!!”

The creature continues to smirk its disdaining smirk when it raises its gnarly hand and gray sparkles erupt from its thin, long fingers, metamorphosing into a hissing lightning bolt of magic that zigzags towards his head and envelops it like a helmet made of electricity. His heart gives another lurch of hope but, again, there is no hot rush of pain giving him back at least some sense of self. Again, there is nothing, and he can’t exist like this. He can’t …

“Now, let me see how your mind was compromised, runt,” the creature says but he doesn’t even care what that means because nothing has meaning now, _nothing_ , because he doesn’t exist, no, he can’t exist, how could he, and then his mind, or what is left of it, yawns open, swallowing all thoughts.

* * *

“Thor!”

He has reached the Hall of Yggdrasil and his heart sinks at the sound of the voice because, of course, it has to be Sif who is coming after him. She always seems to know where exactly he is and he knows she would follow him to the end of the universe if only he asked. If she’ll find out what he is about to do, she’ll insist to accompany him as well, she always does, because she is loyal and they have been in love, and she might still be in love, but that is completely out of the question because he doesn’t want her anywhere near that purple filth.

“Not now,” Thor grumbles.

“Please, Thor. What is wrong?” asks Sif. “The air is thick with some hostile magic. I can feel it.”

“And we saw that Queen Frigga was brought to the healing room,” states Fandral and his voice is sharp with urgency. _Oh no, not him too_. “What malice has Loki brought back from Midgard?”

Thor turns around then and stares into the concerned faces of Sif and the Warriors Three. “ _I_ brought that malice here,” he begins. “Loki is … I don’t have time to explain. I need to find him.”

Sif flicks an anxious glance at the doors. “What are you planning to do?”

“What I must,” replies Thor before he mentally chants the spell that is known only to the Royal Family. The massive doors open with a creak and his friends start firing questions at him.

“You can’t possibly think of tapping into Yggdrasil’s magic,” comes from Sif, even though she knows deep down, or maybe not even _that_ deep down, that this is exactly what he is thinking of.

“What happened on Midgard?” comes from Volstagg.

“What did Loki do?” comes from Hogun.

“Where is he now?” comes from Fandral, and there is that undertone in his voice that has always made Thor wonder if there might not be some attraction between them. Not that it matters at this moment. _Nothing_ matters at this moment. Nothing except that Loki’s mind is melting and that Thor needs to find him before he loses what little piece of himself he still has left.

“I will explain later,” Thor tells his friends and then he leaves them by the doors and walks up to Yggdrasil. The World Ash is towering before him in all her staggering glory, pulsating with glamour, _vibrating_ with it, and he can almost taste her magic in the thick air because this is the only place in Asgard where her branches exist in corporeal form, allowing the Allfather to harness her energy to protect the Realm Eternal through the Odinforce.

Which is why his friends have no permission to enter. That ban, however, doesn’t seem to bother the Lady Sif in this moment. She enters the hall and strides after him and Fandral strides after her, trying to hold her back, grabbing her by the arm.

“Please, leave me be,” Thor begs half-heartedly because in his current state, he can’t think of anything reasonable to say that might convince them to comply with his demands, especially not Sif, because Sif knows him well enough to recognize that he is about to do something very reckless and possibly very foolish.

“Thor,” she pleads with him. “Please. Whatever it is that you’re …”

“Yggdrasil,” Thor whispers, blocking out her voice as he stretches out his hand, reaching for one of the universe’s most potent magical powers until he feels his skin prickle with her energy. “Vinsamlegast veittu mér aðgang að myrkum töfrum þínum,” he begs the World Tree in the ancient tongue. “Farðu með mig til bróður míns.” His voice hitches. “Farðu með mig til Loki.”

“Thor, _no_!” screams Sif but Yggdrasil instantly acquiesces to his request and her branches rustle and swish and the air swells with magic and then her power envelops him and time and space dissolve around him and his body becomes weightless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here we go. I have the rest of the plot planned out in my head from this point on and I should guess it will be around 15 chapters long if nothing unforseeable happens and it might not take me that long to finish this because, well, I have time now. And here's a few notes:  
> \- Can the Maw perform healing spells? I don't know and, also, I don't really care, lol.  
> \- What Thor says to Yggdrasil is Icelandic (which is the language closest to Old Norse) and means "Please, grant me access to your dark magic" and then, "Take me to my brother. Take me to Loki." At least I hope that's what it means but I did some research and Google Translate has truly evolved, so I'm taking my chances to make it sound fancier.  
> \- Loki shitting on Tyr's head is my headcanon and also comes up in Beyond Mischief. Don't ask me why but I can picture this very clearly in my head.  
> \- I wrote the Loki parts of this chapter when I was still in London and, Ravenleaf, the part I was writing in the Pret's on Trafalgar Square when you asked me why I was smirking, that was that bit about Loki's blood surging to his crotch. Just so you know *grins in evil gumball machine*  
> \- I hope y'all stay tuned. Much love xoxo


	10. Nobody gets away with hurting my brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have some protective Thor in these trying times.
> 
> [tw self-harm]  
> [tw violence]

Yggdrasil releases Thor onto the rocky surface of the moonscape where Thanos has taken up momentary residence and the Thundergod tumbles to the ground, casting an awkward half-somersault in the attempt to slow his forward momentum and reach for his hammer at the same time. He grits his teeth as pain begins to throb along the wrist and forearm that he used to cushion the impact of his fall and then he jolts into a sitting position too quickly and his vision explodes into stars.

He gasps and thinks that if Loki were with him on this quest, he would mock him for this ungraceful entrance and he would sneer at him what a _tremendous_ idea it was to have come here alone, and his heart gives a violent lurch that robs him of the ability to breathe. Yet, the thought of being scoffed at by his sarcastic, sharp-tongued little brother once more also gives him a leg-up and he rises to his feet, slower this time, surveying his surroundings.

He has seen the landscape only once, and only in a very brief flash in Loki’s memories on the roof of Stark Tower, and there are no landmarks to speak of. As far as Thor can see, there is nothing here but countless rock formations rising up against the dark, starry endlessness of the universe, with several rocks floating above the ground, and he gulps when he realizes that the cave he has seen in his brother’s memories might be hidden within or even beneath any of those formations. But then he remembers that the last time his father mustered dark energy to conjure him to Midgard, he landed directly on the vessel Loki was sitting in, which means that his brother must be close.

Thor’s gaze sweeps the rocks once more and this time, a glint catches his eye between the rocks to his left and he thinks it might be a blade or another weapon that is reflecting the starlight. He doesn’t think much else after that. Instead, he runs off towards that glint, swinging Mjölnir to build up the right amount of momentum for a deadly blow, jumps onto the rock formation and then hurls his hammer at the gray-skinned creature guiding what could be an entrance to a cave beneath the ridge he is standing on before he even really _sees_ it.

The hammer crashes into the creature’s chest and it cries out in pain and surprise, an ugly, alien screech, and then its knees buckle and Thor catches Mjölnir and descends from the ridge accompanied by the rumbling of a thunderstorm swiftly approaching. A furious roar comes booming out of his mouth when he smashes Mjölnir into the creature’s face and, in his wrath, the God of Thunder is all but oblivious to the fact that he has most certainly just announced his arrival to every being residing on that moonscape, including Thanos.

“Loki!” Thor bellows as the creature slumps to the ground, clearing the entrance into the cave, but then it finally dawns on him that his brother might not be alone and that he might have just squandered his element of surprise. He tries to take a deep breath, his father’s words clattering through his skull— _don’t be rash_ ; _we must proceed with care_ —and he tries to remind himself that the last time he has acted on pure reckless instinct, Loki has teleported himself back to this freakish non-place, the prolonged exposure to which would be enough to twist any sane person’s mind, even without the horrific tortures his little brother had to endure. Thor inhales deeply, almost choking on Loki’s name and his rage and his guilt, and then steps over the creature’s body and into the tunnel possibly leading him to _that_ cave, his body growing as taut as a bowstring.

The tunnel he is walking into is higher and wider than he would have imagined it but, then again, Thanos is at least eight feet tall, Thor remembers, and he must be able to enter here, mustn’t he. Dread settles in the pit of his stomach as he keeps on walking, ever deeper into the belly of the rocks, trying to prepare himself for what he might see when he arrives, trying to prepare himself for the sight of Loki bleeding and disoriented and in pain or maybe even worse than that, maybe he has to see him in the arms of the Mad Titan again, leaning against him for support, or maybe he will just stare at him with those dead, empty, unfocused eyes and Thor’s heart is slamming against his ribcage and cold sweat is pouring down his spine and he tries his hardest to breathe normally and the air is eerily still except for a thin current of magic that coils through the tunnel and leads him to the opening of the cave and his heart makes a jump in his chest when he reaches it and spots Loki, with his arms and neck chained to the wall behind him and Ebony Maw kneeling in front of him in deep concentration and a shield of grayish-purple magic laced with yellows pulsating around his head but he isn’t bleeding, no, he doesn’t _seem_ in pain, he just stares, as Thor feared he would and, by Odin’s ravens, that stare is heart-wrenching and will he ever have access to his beautiful mind and his intelligence again?

Thor exhales a shaky breath but then it registers with his outraged brain that the horrid, disgusting creature that is the Maw doesn’t even seem to notice him because he is performing his spellcraft on Loki and, even though Thor isn’t exactly _skilled_ in sorcery, he knows that wielding magic takes tremendous concentration and that whatever the Maw is doing keeps him so distracted that Thor still has the element of surprise and isn’t it nothing short of a miracle that the Norns should allow him to be _that_ lucky after defying the Allfather’s orders?

He swings Mjölnir and when the hammer has gained the necessary momentum, he yells, “Hey!” at the creature while hurling his hammer at the Maw’s face and he cherishes the expression of utter incredulity appearing on his hideous visage in that millisecond before Mjölnir crashes into his right temple and flings him onto the ground.

“You’re going to _die_ , you gutless deviant!” Thor screams and then he lunges at Ebony Maw, who is still reeling from the hammer blow, jumping on him like a predator, his heavily armored knees crushing the bones in the creature’s arms as he pins it down. The Maw wheezes in pain, and possibly in terror and surprise, and Thor cherishes that too before he tosses Mjölnir away and reaches for Ebony Maw’s throat because his rage is blinding him and his urge to punish that filth for what his master has done to Loki has taken over his body, governing his movements. “Nobody gets away with hurting my brother,” Thor snarls at the creature in a voice that sounds strangely distorted in his own ears and a heavy breath eases from his lungs as he begins to crush Ebony Maw’s larynx with his bare hands. “I’m going to kill you for what you did to him,” he pants as the Maw gurgles and grabs for his wrists and gasps for breath and pleads for his life before, suddenly, the bones in the creature’s neck snap with a crunch and its body goes limp beneath Thor’s palms.

He releases a heavy breath when he realizes what he has done, no, not what he has _done_ , that isn’t true, is it, no, what shocks him is the _gratification_ that he feels, but he has no time to dwell on that, for he hears a dull crash behind him that startles him and he whirls around only to see Loki slamming his head against the cave wall.

“Loki!” Thor roars but his brother’s eyes remain blank. He crawls over to him and places his left hand between Loki’s head and the wall while placing his right onto his cheek. “Loki, stop, what are you doing?” he whispers but his brother jerks his head back again, squashing his hand against the rock. “Brother, _please_ ,” he howls and his emotions submerge him once more because even though he killed the Maw, there is nothing he can do to help Loki because he can’t seem to shake him out of this terrifying stupor and what if no one can, what if he can’t save him and Frigga can’t save him and all his mother asked of him was to bring Loki _home_ and what if he can’t ever bring her son home, not the son that he was, and what if his sly mind is _really_ and _truly_ damaged beyond repair?

The thought crashes into Thor’s stomach like a spiked mace.

“Loki, stop,” he repeats in a soft whisper as he presses his little brother close, pulling him into a tight hug to protect him from further self-harm but he can’t hold him like this forever, can he, and the Norns be damned, Loki is shaking, his entire body is _trembling_ , and blood is oozing out of Loki’s hair and through Thor’s fingers and he sobs against the crown of his brother’s head because the helplessness is unbearable, it is devouring him whole, but even though there is nothing he can do to bring the real Loki back, he can at least prevent him from slamming his head against the wall one more time and there is nothing else that matters in this moment except _that_.

That and a memory that suddenly comes to him. “You can teleport,” Thor exclaims and then he releases Loki from the hug and places his hands on his brother’s neck. “Do you remember how to teleport?”

Loki stares, eyes unfocused.

“Do you remember how to wield magic?” Thor tries once more because there really isn’t any other way for them to escape this place, is there, and why didn’t he just listen to his father, _just this one time_ , because he can’t leave Loki here to search for the Tesseract or Thanos because if he does leave his little brother here by himself like this, he will … he will …

“Well, well.”

Thor’s head snaps up at the sound of the malice in that deep, chesty voice that sounds so much more threatening in person and he sees Thanos towering above him like a mountain with muscles that look harder than the rock he is kneeling on and a spiteful grin on his lips and, yes, Thor has known he would be huge but he is taken aback by the titan’s size nonetheless.

“Look who finally made an appearance. The Odinson.” Thanos spits the name like an insult and Thor realizes that it has been Thanos speaking through Loki’s mouth on Midgard. “Barging in and killing my children to save the soul of your brother that _you_ tainted with your self-righteousness, your arrogance and your foolishness.”

Another wave of wrath washes over Thor because Thanos has seen the memories Loki had of him and that means that the creature knows who he was and how he treated Loki when they grew up and his breath suddenly comes in shallow gasps. “I will kill you too,” he announces through clenched teeth, his voice thick and sore.

“Will you now, princeling?” Thanos mocks him and it isn’t until then that Thor notices, _truly_ notices, the at least five feet long double-bladed weapon in the titan’s massive purple hands. “Because in order to fight me, you will have to rise to your feet and let go of that pathetic little runt and do you really have the heart to do that?”

“My brother is not pathetic,” Thor growls and the words are vibrating inside of his stomach when he stands abruptly. Loki glances up at him and there is a brief flicker of recognition in his brilliant green eyes. It is gone as quickly as it appeared and then his head slams backwards again but the flicker was _there_ , Thor saw it, and that is all that matters to him because it means that his brother is still in there somewhere and that he might _still_ be able to save him after he defeated the titan. “He is strong in ways one such as you will never even know!”

“Just look at him,” spits Thanos, “courting pain, hurting himself. His mind is _weak_.”

“Keep your vile words inside your wretched mouth!” Thor growls as Mjölnir lifts off the ground and flies into his hand and then he lunges himself at the titan with a fierce battle cry, propelled by the desire to inflict whatever kind of pain he can on that ruthless, purple deviant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm veeery fond of cliffhangers *wink*


	11. Maybe he will survive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all the positive response for this fic <33 You guys are amazing and your comments and your interest in the story really fuel my writing and I hope this chapter will be as intense for you to read as it was for me to write. Enjoy!

His vision is blurry and his head is spinning and throbbing with the sharp pain that the creature finally gave back when that peculiar hammer swished through the air and crashed into its hideous skull, and he cherishes the sensation and he clings to it, he _must_ , he can’t ever stop to move his head, no, he must not stop because that split, that crack, that smell, that blinding explosion, he must not let go of any of that ever again, _He will make you long for something **sweet** as pain_, **_long for it_** , yes, because his existence is in danger if he doesn’t have that, he just _knows_ it, but then, suddenly, something strange happens and there is another thought that breaks through the haze.

Thor is fighting for him.

He doesn’t know at first why this has meaning and it terrifies him because he is beginning to feel something other than the desire to hurt, even though that something remains deeply buried inside of his splintered mind and he is not really _feeling_ it, is he, it’s just a sensation or a memory, maybe it _really_ is a memory this time that is stirring underneath all those layers of his peculiar cognitive non-existence, or at least the shadow of one, but it is _there_ , and he is _aware_ , on some level, that Thor means something to him.

His mouth gapes open and he pauses mid-movement, blinking.

Thor is fighting for him because he thinks that they are brothers and maybe that is even true because, yes, he _knows_ Thor and Thor means something to him and he must mean something to Thor, mustn’t he, because why else would Thor come here to this dark place at the edge of the universe and plead with him and cry, he _cried_ , didn’t he, and how is that even possible because the Mighty Thor _does not cry_ , he is a warrior and he is strong and proud, but he did cry, _for him_ , and he has love for him even though he should think him vile but he doesn’t, he _doesn’t_ , for whatever reason, he doesn’t.

No, he is fighting for him.

He is defending him.

 _My brother is not pathetic_.

He is _protecting_ him.

Protecting him from Him, who is so much stronger than he is and who could crush him with those massive purple hands, but he realizes then that He is also so much stronger than Thor, who keeps fighting Him because that is what the God of Thunder does, he doesn’t give up, no, he hurls his hammer at His face and His chest, roaring furiously, and he ducks His blows, and he is relentless but so is He and His sword is gigantic and it can withstand the blows of Thor’s hammer and that isn’t a good sign, oh no, not at all.

He must help Thor, mustn’t he, he must fight for Thor the same way Thor is fighting for him, and he becomes aware of that, yes, but he doesn’t know how because he is in chains and his vision is blurry still and his head is on fire, which feels _so good, yes, it does, no one will_ **_ever_** _understand just **how good** that feels and how **satisfying** that sensation is, _but there is no time now, is there, for Thor is slowly tiring and he must focus.

On what, he doesn’t know, not at first, but then something else stirs awake inside of him and he feels energy surging through him and green sparks begin to dance in his peripheral vision and bright yellow and orange sparks too.

_Do you remember how to wield magic?_

He does not, not really, but he remembers the warmth of his glamour streaming through his body and he remembers the _feel_ of his magic and he notices that something about that magic is different now, or maybe not, because it is not his magic that his different, it’s _him_ , he no longer exists as he did and he can’t access who he is anymore. Although, maybe he will know himself again, in the future, because he can sense that there is more to him than what is there right now and he glances up at Thor and at Him, who is holding up His sword to deflect Thor’s hammer blow and then the sword shatters and a thousand shards of metal clatter to the ground as the hammer crashes into His chest.

He stumbles backwards with a grunt of surprise and anger, yes, above all seething hot anger and hatred because He despises him, he knows that, but He collects himself far too quickly, and Thor makes the mistake of turning around to look at him, to see what the parts of his mind he no longer has access to did to His sword. He, the master, the sire, the one who will make him long for something sweet as pain, and the pain is fading and his gaze lands on the shards of the broken sword _because they will be the PERFECT tool, won’t they, to make his skin split open with THAT gratifying, soundless hiss_ , but no, there is no time for that, because He has used the moment of Thor’s inattentiveness to grab his head and yank him off the ground.

Thor is growling in protest, his legs kicking, and now that his vision is finally sharpening, he can see that the God of Thunder is bleeding out of his nose and mouth, that his hair is sweaty and disheveled, and that he is out of breath.

“Let go of me,” Thor pants but He doesn’t pay attention to him.

“What a pleasant surprise to see you awake,” He murmurs and he remembers what He said earlier, that He would kill Thor and make him watch, and he must prevent that at all costs, yes, he must, his glamour must help him, _but look, look at those shards and look how SHARP they are, just look at their edges, no, not now, there is no time, JUST LOOK AT THEM AND IMAGINE THE RUSH WHEN THEY PIERCE YOUR SKIN, NO I CAN’T, I MUST HELP THOR_.

The master throws Thor at his feet with a condescending grin and places His heavy leather boot onto Thor's throat and Thor’s hands curl around His ankles and he makes a sound that is half a gasp for breath and half an angry roar and He just smirks and that feral malice flashes in his eyes when he says, “Now you can say goodbye to your precious brother, Loki.”

And there is that vile name again, Loki, that name is a stain, isn’t it, yes, it tastes like bile, _no, Loki_ , and where is that voice coming from and who is this, _YOU MUST HAVE THAT SHARD_ , wait, no, Thor, he is gurgling because he is dying, isn’t he, yes, He is _killing_ him and he MUST do something but THAT SHARD, THAT SHARD, no, he must do something and why can’t he just immobilize Him the same way that hideous creature immobilized him earlier so that he stops crushing Thor’s throat and his glamour stirs, no, not _his_ glamour, that foreign glamour stirs but what does it matter because He freezes and then Thor squirms free, finally he is safe, but he gasps and he coughs and he pants and then he cries, violent sobs tearing through his chest, and he almost chokes on them when he rises to his feet and reaches for his hammer.

Yes, Thor will kill Him and that is fine because he no longer needs Him. He needs that shard, yes, that is what he needs more than ANYTHING and now that Thor is safe, he can have it, he can FINALLY have it, and the chains around his neck crumble into dust and he crawls over to the place where the giant blade of His sword shattered and he picks up one large shard and squeezes it in his palm until its sharp edges bite into his skin and the blood oozes out and he breathes a sigh of relief.

Yes, that is what he needs, even though, maybe he needs Thor too, the same way Thor needed him only moments ago, and that sensation is very peculiar because he suddenly remembers how Thor hugged him, not today, but a long time in the past, and even though he doesn’t remember himself, not yet at least, he remembers how that _felt_ and he knows that Thor is important and that he must go back with him because maybe Thor can fix this. He glances up again and sees how the Thundergod’s hammer strikes His face again and again until that evil smirk and those malicious eyes are no longer recognizable and the pleasantly familiar sticky-sweet smell of fresh blood fills the cave.

After a few moments, Thor drops his hammer and stumbles over to him and he is weak, yes, his knees are very wobbly and shaky, and he slumps to the ground beside him, reaching for his hand. “Please stop hurting yourself,” he pleads softly and his breath hitches because he has overexerted himself and he should not even speak. “Give me that.”

He shakes his head but he releases the pressure a little nonetheless because a tear spills out of Thor’s eye and he doesn’t want to make him cry.

“Do you remember now?” Thor asks after a while and his breathing is a little less heavy.

He begins to shake his head once more but then he pauses because he does, a little at least, and tears sting his eyes and he gasps for breath as an unspeakable terror suddenly submerges him, flooding his lungs, because why won’t his mind let him remember? What happened that he can no longer think? But wait, he is _thinking_ about his mind at this very moment, isn’t he, and that means he _is_ conscious, doesn’t it, and that is probably a good sign but what if his fractured mind won’t EVER let him remember, what if all there will EVER be from now on is that shard and the sweetness of pain, and that urge to ram the shard into the skin on the back of his left hand, that urge, he MUST do that, he MUST DO IT RIGHT NOW because when he does, everything goes white for a while.

“Loki, please,” howls Thor and then he pries his fingers open, snatches the shard of metal out of his hand and tosses it to the other end of the cave before he sweeps him into another hug and clutches him so tightly that he can’t move and barely breathe but then he begins to feel safe and maybe his body will not shatter if the pain stops. Maybe he will survive if Thor holds him like this.

“You don’t have to do this to yourself,” whispers Thor. “I know you broke when you found out the truth but whatever you think of yourself, you’re wrong, because you are neither unworthy nor are you a monster. You don’t deserve all this punishment and all this pain.”

 _The truth_. Now, that is odd, isn’t it, for there are no truths, not anymore, but then again, there is significance to _that_ truth, yes, he can sense it, it means something to him and to Thor too and that significance hangs in the air for a few seconds.

“What truth?” he whispers at last, his voice hoarse with disuse, and the words come out muffled against Thor’s armored chest.

“That you’re not an Aesir by blood,” Thor replies, “and I am so sorry that I never asked you what you meant when you told me that you weren’t my brother but I was blinded by my rage and I had no idea until after you fell and …”

Thor continues but his voice fades into a dull, wordless murmur because, even though he knows that these words such as _Aesir_ and _brother_ and _falling_ mean something and even though he is certain that meaning will come to him in time, right now, they don’t make sense to him but that doesn’t matter, for he feels safe and his eyelids are turning to lead and if he could just fall asleep …

“Loki?”

He forces his eyes back open because Thor has released him from the hug and is now grabbing his shoulders. “I am tired,” he breathes and leans back against Thor’s shoulder because maybe _that_ is where he belongs.

“Yeah, me too,” says Thor and rubs his arm. “But we can’t stay here.”

He swallows because he is right. They can’t stay here. They _shouldn’t_ stay here because there are still other creatures living here. “Teleport,” he whispers and he tries to remember what _that_ means. “I don’t …”

“It’s alright,” says Thor. “Do you know where the Tesseract is?”

He lifts his head and stares at Thor in confusion.

“The cube,” Thor elaborates, “that blue, sparkling cube that you brought here. Do you know where it is now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so in awe of the strong bond between Thor and Loki and so intrigued by the destructive and abusive and co-dependent nature of their relationship because it makes for such good fics and it is so satisfying to explore the complexity of both their brotherly relationship and what it did to Loki's psyche, so this chapter was particularly rewarding to write.
> 
> That said, I've had it as my headcanon for a while now that Loki sort of absorbed some of the powers of the Mind Stone during his time under its control, which would explain why he was suddenly able to perform telekinesis in TTDW and which is why he can shatter the sword like this.


	12. What Loki desires the most

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know if I need to continue posting these warnings here but just to be on the safe side:  
> [tw self-harm]

Loki slightly tilts his head and something flickers through his eyes. For a brief moment, it looks as if he is teetering on the edge of a revelation but then his stare turns entirely blank once more and Thor’s heart constricts at the absence of the quick wit and intelligence that have always blazed in those green eyes. “Do you remember how you came here?” he asks softly although he knows, even if his mind still refuses to acknowledge it, deep down he knows that his brother does not remember any of the things he is doing.

Loki shakes his head and his lips begin to quiver.

“It’s alright, you will remember in time,” Thor assures his brother as he gives his arm another squeeze, hoping that he is right, _praying_ that he is right, and almost going blind with dread at the thought that he might be wrong.

“Why can’t I?” Loki whispers, speaking the words so softly that Thor isn’t sure at first whether he really caught them. “Why?” Loki repeats, a little louder.

An arrow piercing his heart would hurt less, thinks Thor but he swallows the pain down. “Because you had to,” he begins, groping for words, and then settles on, “endure tremendous suffering. Y-you … I am certain it would be too much for you to remember right now, so your mind has shut itself off to protect you but I am sure you will … I am sure …” No, he isn’t sure, not at all. _Not at all_.

Loki nods against his shoulder. Thor assumes that he probably isn’t aware of what his words truly meant but it doesn’t matter to his brother because his eyes are closing again. He finally feels safe and he seeks comfort in Thor’s arms now, not in those of the purple monster. Thor lifts his gaze, glancing up at Thanos, who still towers a few feet from them, frozen in attack mode— _Is he **really** dead? You must make sure!_—and he knows that they _really_ shouldn’t stay. But he can hardly drag Loki across this rocky wasteland to search for the cube to teleport them back to Asgard, can he, and he can’t leave him here by himself either because if he does, he will hurt himself.

Loki’s breathing slows and the soft breathing rhythms of his almost-slumber lift a weight off Thor’s chest because his brother feels safe and that is all that matters for now, isn’t it, yes, that is _all_ that matters. He will hold him, just for a moment, just for _one minute_ , he tells himself, but his exhaustion is catching up with him and Loki’s breathing is _so_ soothing.

 _Just a minute_ … _I will think of what to do in a minute_.

Now that the adrenaline rush of anger that has been sustaining him thus far is finally wearing off, he realizes how drained _he_ is. He wonders, briefly, why his strength is so depleted but then he remembers in a blur how he traveled across the universe on the waves of black magic _twice_ to fight first the Chitauri and then Thanos and his eyes are closing, why are they closing, because he is drifting off to sleep, no, he is not supposed to drift off to sleep now … he must protect … he must … no, he feels safe … no, he must … protect … his little … brother … 

* * *

The sharp noise of glass shattering into a thousand pieces is what starts him from his doze and the first thing he feels is Loki’s body breaking away from his but Thor would be damned if he could tell what he _sees_ first when his eyes snap open. There is the naked terror glaring in his brother’s eyes as his hand shoots out, reaching for another shard of the titan’s sword. There is the heap of tiny crystals on the ground where Thanos stood until moments ago. And then there is the grim face of Odin, glowering down at him as he lowers Gúngnir to his side, and there is Sleipnir too, stomping his eight hooves behind the Allfather in agitation.

“Father,” Thor stammers in a breathy voice but Odin is already fixing his one eye on Loki, who has pulled his knees up to his chest and is wrapping his trembling arms tightly around his legs, _hugging_ himself, with blood oozing out between his fingers that are squashing the shard of metal.

The Allfather’s lips part in what seems like genuine horror.

“He calmed down before,” Thor whispers through clenched teeth and the anger seeps back into his voice. “This is _your_ doing!”

“We shall not discuss family affairs in such a nornforsaken place! Sleipnir will take you and your brother home,” Odin commands and Thor’s lips part in surprise because never before has the Allfather permitted him to ride his magnificent world-walking stallion. “I will bring to a close what you started. After that, we may contemplate matters of blame and punishment. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, father,” Thor replies but only because he knows that he needs to get his younger brother as far, far away from this cave that carries such strong connotations of the pain, torture and anguish he seeks as soon as possible. Odin gives a curt nod and then strokes Sleipnir’s mane, whispering into the stallion’s ear in the ancient tongue, to which the horse whinnies. The Allfather then strides out of the cave, searching for the cube maybe, but it couldn’t possibly matter less to Thor where is father is going.

What matters to him is that Loki felt safe, if only for a few moments—well, for the time they have ventured into slumber, for however long that has been—but is now absolutely terrified once more because Odin … He can’t finish the thought. “Hey,” whispers Thor, reaching for his brother’s trembling shoulders. “He is gone. Everything will turn out fine, I promise.”

Loki jerks away from his touch and shakes his head before he buries it between his knees, rocking back and forth like small child, and it belatedly registers with the God of Thunder what his father has said to the horse. He has not said _‘Take my sons back to Asgard’_ or _‘Take the princes back to Asgard’_. What he has said was _‘Take Thor and his brother back to Asgard’_. Odin already made it clear to him that he no longer truly thinks of Loki as his son but now Loki had to sense it too and he let go because he feared that Odin might kill him and how can Thor bring Loki back to Asgard _now_? And where else could he possibly bring him after his father has commanded Sleipnir to bring them back to the Realm Eternal?

“Loki, please,” Thor whispers and another tremor shakes Loki’s body at the sound of his name and Sleipnir neighs at them, snorting with impatience as he stomps the pebble under his hooves, and Thor has to bite his tongue so hard that he tastes blood to keep himself from raising his voice at the stallion. “Brother, please,” Thor rephrases, carefully placing his palms on Loki’s shaking hands. “I am here. You are safe.” His voice cracks because of what he feels necessary to add. “Odin will not hurt you if we return to Asgard.” The words churn his stomach.

When his brother doesn’t flinch, he carefully pries Loki’s fingers open once more and the shard clatters to the floor. “We can’t stay here,” Thor repeats his earlier words. “You know this, don’t you?”

Loki raises his head and his lips open but no sound comes out.

“Please, let me take you back, at least for a little while,” Thor whispers. “I know Asgard is not the place where you want to be and I don’t want to take you to a place you don’t want to be, I swear on the good of all the Realms that I don’t, but Asgard is our only choice. We can travel to no other place from here right now. We are stuck here,” he continues quietly because Loki seems to be calming down again. “Unless you want to stay here?” Thor adds, as softly as he can.

Loki answers with a shake of his head that is almost imperceptible, his quivering mouth forming his soundless answer. _No_.

“Will you come back with me, then?” Thor asks, carefully. “I will take care of you, I promise. You will not have to see anyone or speak with anyone. I will make sure of that.”

After a few heartbeats, Loki nods his hesitant agreement and Thor helps him up, walking him to the stallion, and, the Norns be damned, Loki is so wobbly on his legs that he can’t even hold his body upright. Sleipnir lowers himself to the ground but even then, his brother can’t seem to mount the stallion by himself and Thor has to lift him onto the horse’s back. It is not, however, as if lifting him is still a feat. By Odin’s ravens, Loki has become _so_ light and _so_ fragile that Thor fears that the only weight he is holding in his hands is coming from the gold in his brother’s armor.

Thor bites back his tears and leaps onto Sleipnir’s back behind his brother, reaching for the reins. “To Asgard,” he commands as Loki slumps against his chest. The stallion whinnies and then gallops out of the cave at a dazzling pace, racing along the plains of the moonscape until his speed blurs the rocks into a fuzzy gray. Stardust seems to erupt on either side of the God of Thunder and the last thing he can think before the stupor of world-walking envelops him for the third time in what feels like only a day is why Odin never even thought of sending Sleipnir for Loki when he fell from the Bifröst or why he didn’t allow him to go looking for his brother on the stallion’s back.

* * *

“This is where you used to live,” Thor tells Loki when he walks his brother into his chambers from the balcony after it has cost him another softly spoken speech, another grueling exercise in patience, to convince Loki that he could fly him to safety with Mjölnir from the edge of the broken Bifröst where Sleipnir released them. Loki’s body remains as tight as a bowstring beside him and Thor can almost feel his reluctance. He himself feels rather uneasy upon entering these chambers again after such a long time. Despite the fact that Frigga demanded the chambers to be left untouched after her son plunged into the abyss of space, he has never set foot in them after Loki let go. “Do you remember any of it?”

Loki’s empty eyes sweep the room and then he shakes his head, his hands cupping his elbows as if for comfort. “I shouldn’t be here,” he breathes, his voice hardly audible.

Well, at least, that is what Thor thinks he hears, and he takes his brother’s hands in his. “Maybe not,” he tries, squeezing them, “but you shouldn’t be in that cave either. You _definitely_ shouldn’t be inside that cave.”

Loki gazes at him in confusion.

“But you can sleep now,” Thor whispers and softly pushes him towards the bed his brother used to lie down on every night before his life came apart at the seams. “You said you were tired, didn’t you?”

Loki nods but still he eyes the bed suspiciously for a few heartbeats.

“Please, just try to lie down,” Thor urges him as calmly as he can because his own fatigue is starting to blur his vision and he can feel his impatience rising, knowing that, come what may, he must curb it. “I will not allow anyone to enter this room.” He walks over the doors, bolting them shut for emphasis. “See? You are safe here.” He pauses, searching for the right words. “Do you trust me?”

Loki’s eyes search for his and he seems to be thinking it over, well, he seems to be considering it in the void of his now empty mind, or maybe he is merely reflecting on what the expression _means_. Thor doesn’t know and it doesn’t matter. What matters is the hesitant, almost shy nod Loki gives him before he plunks himself down onto the cushions, his face still twisted into a frown.

Thor reaches for the magic pulsating through the veins of Asgard and the armor he and Loki are wearing disintegrates into the air until they need its protection once more. Thor’s lips part when all the black leather and plated gold of Loki’s battle attire dissolve around him with faint green sparks, leaving nothing but a thin tunic the color of fern that reveals his brother’s collarbone and his shoulder blades, which are poking through his skin and the fabric like the miniature ridges of a miniature mountain.

“I will get you something to drink,” Thor brings himself to say. “You can lie down now.”

When he returns from the bath carrying a jug filled with water and a glass, Loki is still sitting upright, well, semi-upright and swaying, gazing at him as he approaches the bed. His eyes are unfocused at first but then they are fixing on the jug and the glass and something flashes in his gaze and … “No, brother, _please_ ,” Thor urges him but the warning comes too late. The empty glass in his hands bursts, shattering into pieces that rain down on the floor and on Loki’s lap. His brother instinctively reaches for the biggest of the shards and begins to squeeze it with such force that his knuckles are standing out in a grotesque white against his already pale skin.

“I will get you a new glass,” Thor whispers and tears claw at the back of his throat when it begins to dawn on him that no matter how much love he has for his brother, this love will not give Loki the same comfort as the pain he seeks. Not yet, at least, because _right now_ , the love of his brother is not what Loki desires the most.

Right now, what Loki desires the most, what he wants, what he _needs_ , is a shard of glass.

Thor can almost feel his knees give out when he turns back around with a new glass in his hand and sees his brother, finally curled up in a fetal position on the bed but clutching _that_ shard of glass to his chest as if it were more precious than the Infinity Stones themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I debated with myself for the longest time if Odin should come to the rescue or if I wanted Thor to return to Asgard with Loki by himself but then I decided that Odin would because I am still convinced that he would try at least try to keep Thor from doing something monumentally stupid. Be that as it may, he still makes everything worse because, well, it's Odin. So, I hope this was to your satisfaction, Odin-Bully-Squad! 
> 
> PS: I think the approximately 15 chapters for the whole thing is still a safe enough bet, for I have almost written out the last chapter and then there is probably one other chapter to fill in the blanks, the ideas for which have already written themselves in my head. I just have to put them down on paper. 
> 
> So, please stay tuned and thank you again so much for your continuous support. Much love and see y'all soon I hope xoxo


	13. You can’t see him

Thor swallows his emotions down, well, tries to, anyway, and fills the new glass with water from the crystal jug. “You must be thirsty,” he says softly, holding the glass out to his brother. “Please, drink a little.”

Loki props himself up on one arm, reaches for the glass of water with his free hand and downs it in one large swig.

“More?” asks Thor and Loki gives a nod. He empties two more glasses before he sinks back into the pillow and curls into a ball again, pulling his knees almost up to his chest. Blood is seeping out through his fingers in a thin, crimson rivulet that is dripping onto his tunic and onto the cushion, slowly staining the materials. “Will you give me that?” Thor tries in the gentlest tone he can muster in his current state of emotional aggravation.

Loki shakes his head.

“That’s alright,” Thor mumbles, more to himself than to his brother, and then pulls the blanket over him and tucks him in because he knows that it is not in his power to take that shard away from Loki. If he did, Loki would only shatter the jug, the mirror, the lamps or the crystalline figurine of the two entwined snakes on his desk, which double-functions as a holder for his two most-cherished daggers forged from the volcanic ash of Muspelheim. A smile begins to tuck at the corners of Thor’s lips at the memory of the sparkling delight in Loki’s eyes when Frigga gifted him those daggers.

But it’s not only, Thor realizes when the memory dissolves, that he does not have the _power_ to stop Loki from harming himself. No, what is even more important is that he doesn’t feel as though he has the _right_ to take the one thing that gives his little brother the most comfort in this moment away from him. As wrong, unjust, twisted or upsetting as it may be that Loki is clutching a sharp-edged shard of glass to his chest where a child would seek the comfort of a stuffed animal, he needs the warmth of his blood to calm down and if Thor took that from him, he would commit the same mistake he committed throughout the better part of his life. He would ignore Loki’s needs and make him feel unheard.

“I hope you can sleep a little,” Thor whispers, squeezing Loki’s shoulder, but then he notices that his brother tries to keep his eyes open even though his lids begin to flutter. “What is the matter?”

Loki shakes his head against the pillow and it seems as if he is fighting to stay awake.

“You can sleep now,” Thor assures him but he realizes that maybe staying in that cave would have been better for Loki after all. Despite the ruthless coldness of the hard stone, at least his brother felt safe there before Odin came on the scene with his grim face, his unforgiving stare and his gruff voice devoid of any emotion or love. He does not feel safe in his own chambers and Thor knew he wasn’t going to feel safe on Asgard before he brought him back—Odin’s beard be damned, he knew it well enough—but he brought Loki back _anyway_.

“Look, I will sit here,” Thor explains softly and gently sits down on the edge of the bed, his feet still on the floor. “Is that alright?” Loki nods and inches a little closer to him. “I will make sure that no one enters your chambers. No one will disturb you,” Thor promises. “No one, okay?”

Loki inches closer still until his nose almost touches Thor’s leg and the God of Thunder begins to hope that maybe, _just maybe_ , pain is not the only sensation that might give his brother any kind of comfort. He carefully swings his legs onto the bed, presses his back against the headboard and lifts his left arm where Loki is lying curled up on the side. His brother lifts his head and then snuggles into his embrace, burying his head in the pit of his arm. “You will stay here?” he whispers against Thor’s side and Thor can feel his breath through the material of his shirt.

“I will stay here,” the Thundergod assures him as he cradles his little brother close as if he were a small child again. As his own eyelids flutter closed, Thor dimly remembers the period in their childhood when Loki was about five years old and crawled into his bed in the middle of the night several nights a week, panting and crying, because he was terrified that Ratatöskr would claw open his head and eat parts of his brain if he dared to fall asleep. What an odd thing to fear as a child, thinks Thor, his senses dulled by a swiftly approaching slumber, and then he hears Frigga’s voice saying that there has always been something dark and destructive lurking inside Loki’s mind and Odin’s voice barking that he would not be blamed for the frenzies of Loki’s twisted mind, and it always comes back to Loki’s mind, doesn’t it, yes, that sharp mind of his that used to be such a formidable weapon but that also made him afraid of brain-eating squirrels and that has shut down almost entirely right now and he hopes that if only Loki sleeps, if only he could fall asleep and rest, if only his mind could rest for a while that it would awaken again in the morning and the last thing he thinks of before sleep pulls him away from his thoughts is that one time Loki turned him into a frog with a spell that could only be lifted by Sif planting a kiss on his lips because he picked up some foolish Midgardian fairytale.

* * *

Thor’s mind stirs awake again when it registers a knock on a door that seems peculiarly out of place in the dreamscape he is stumbling through. Propelled by the promise he made, his eyes snap open instantly, and he hears Frigga’s voice softly calling out from the other side of the door of Loki’s chambers. He tries to untangle himself as carefully as he can and whispers a soundless prayer of thanks to the Norns when Loki simply rolls over, curling back into a fetal position without showing any sign of disturbance. Thor leaps to his feet and tiptoes to the doors but before he reaches them, the lock clicks open.

Thor opens the door from the inside and slips through before his mother has a chance to enter.

“I felt the signatures of your glamour when I woke,” says Frigga, peering over his shoulder into the chambers as he closes the door behind his back as quietly as he can. “You brought Loki back.”

Thor gives a nod. “I did, yes, but you can’t see him,” he tells her firmly.

“Wh-why?” Frigga whispers and the sight of her pale face, lined with worry and exhaustion, tears shimmering in her eyes, makes his intestines clench with guilt.

“Because I promised him he wouldn’t have to see anyone,” Thor replies.

“Anyone,” Frigga echoes quietly and he notices then that her entire body is still trembling with the horrors she had to witness. “I am not just anyone, am I?”

“Right now,” Thor brings himself to say, “to him, you are. He doesn’t … He never wanted to come here and I was foolish enough to bring him here against his will. _Twice_. He doesn’t feel safe here and I will not let anyone disturb him. Not even you.”

“ _Disturb_ him? I don’t mean to disturb him. I just want to see him,” Frigga begs him and the tears spill out of her gray-blue eyes, streaming down her cheeks. “Please, let me see my son … After everything … I just need to _see_ him … I have to make sure that he is …”

“He isn’t, mother,” Thor tells her softly and he knows that he is driving a dagger through her heart with his words but he also knows that, right now, Loki is more important than the feelings of his mother. “All he can think of is hurting himself and he is beyond terrified of father and with his mind as far gone as it is, I can’t be sure if he wouldn’t be equally terrified of you.”

Frigga chokes on a sob.

“But he is asleep at last and the only reason he fell asleep is because I promised him that I would make sure no one enters these chambers. So, please, go now.”

Pure, naked terror flashes across his mother’s face.

“I know how hard this must be for you but you brought this upon yourself by lying to him,” Thor says and he can feel the tears clawing at his own throat when Frigga’s hand travels to her mouth to stifle another sob. “Please,” he softly adds, “if you truly love him and want what’s best for him, you must go now and wait until he feels safe enough to talk to you.”

Eventually, Frigga nods her reluctant agreement and then leans forward, sweeping him into a hug. “Thank you for bringing him home,” she whispers against his chest and he can feel her tears soaking the material of his shirt.

He poises in the embrace for a few heartbeats before he gently breaks free.

Frigga wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “Now, you wouldn’t know where your father is, would you?”

Thor narrows his eyes at her. “If he hasn’t returned, I suppose he is still there, searching for the cube.”

There is a flicker of hope in the Queen’s eyes. “H-he came for you?” she asks and Thor doesn't even question how she knows that he ran off to save Loki by himself.

“Well, I think he came for the cube,” he corrects his mother flatly, “but yes.”

A tremor shakes Frigga’s body when she understands the meaning of his words. “A-and Thanos?”

“We killed him,” comes Thor’s clipped reply. He resents having to hurt the woman who has showered him with nothing but love when he grew up in such a way but he also feels his anger at his parents’ negligence rising again and he knows he can’t succumb to wrath now. Not when Loki needs him to stay calm. Which is why he slightly bows, wishes his mother a good night and slips back into Loki’s chambers without another word.

* * *

The next time Thor wakes, it is to the cawing of his father’s ravens that mingled with his dreams before he realizes in that peculiar state of half-worn-off-slumber that the birds have entered Loki’s chambers in the waking world. He straightens in the armchair he settled into because he didn’t want to wake his brother after he came back into the room and rubs the sleep out of his eyes. Loki is sitting on the windowsill above his bed, his knees pulled up to his chest. Húginn and Múninn are perching on each of his shoulders and the sunlight of a bright morning streaming into the chambers behind him makes the ravens’ feathers shine like liquid bitumen. The sight is so peaceful that Thor can exist in a moment of oblivion before the horrors of the past days begin to pour back into his mind.

Húginn caws and flies over to him, sitting down on his head, digging its claws into his scalp.

“Get off,” Thor mumbles, shaking his head but the raven keeps cawing.

“The Allfather wants to see you,” says Loki softly.

Yes, he understood as much and he dreads the harangue his father is about to give him. He also dreads the punishment the Allfather is undoubtedly going to inflict upon him since he very well remembers that the last time he has betrayed Odin’s express command, his father has exiled him and if he will do any such thing again now … with Loki … He tries to shake off the thought. “Do you … remember anything?” Thor asks but he feels foolish as soon as he has given voice to the question and sees Loki’s face twist into a frown. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, clearing his throat. “Did you … did you sleep well?”

Loki gives a half-shrug.

Húginn keeps cawing on his head— _Allfather wants to see the prince! Prince must hurry!_ —and Thor’s hand jerks upwards, grabbing the raven by the neck and pulling it off his hair. “Yes, I _heard_ you. Now, fly off.”

The bird caws in protest but then it complies, flapping his wings and dashing out of the window, Múninn flying after him.

“How do you feel?” Thor asks because he doesn’t really know what else to ask but Loki merely shrugs again. The Thundergod’s eyes sweep the room but he can’t see any shards except for those that are still on the floor by the bed from when Loki has shattered the glass with his mind the night before. He can also see that Loki isn’t holding any of those in his hands anymore and his heart swells with hope.

“I suppose I have to see him,” Thor thinks out loud, for he is relatively certain that if he disobeys his father’s commands for long, Odin will come barging into Loki’s chambers sooner or later and subjecting his brother to the Allfather’s wrath once more, even if it might not be directed at him, is the last thing he wants.

Loki gives a slow nod.

“Will you be alright?” Thor asks his brother. “I could run you a bath in the meantime and then return with some breakfast?” The second he has spoken those words, his stomach growls in anticipation at the thought of plates filled with bread, cheese and meat as if his body only now remembers that it hasn’t ingested any food in what feels like a week.

Loki’s lips part.

“Are you hungry?” Thor tries.

Loki shakes his head.

“How about that bath, then?” Thor asks because, even if a night full of sleep did not restore Loki’s mind, he finds himself hoping like the hopeless, gullible oaf that he is that a hot bath might. And if nothing else, his brother might feel better once he has washed all the grime and sweat and dried blood off his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene between Thor and Frigga has been playing around in my head for almost a week now, maybe even longer than that, and it's been driving me crazy. I love Frigga with all my heart, and my mutuals on Twitter will probably be able to attest to that, so calling her out on what she did wrong despite her trying the best she could in the patriarchal Asgard ruled by Odin was a liiiiiittle painful to write. But that doesn't change the fact that what Thor tells her is true and that her never standing up to Odin contributed a lot to Loki's downfall. I do not doubt that Frigga loves Loki but sometimes, love alone isn't quite enough, is it? :((


	14. You have proven your worth as a brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki begins to remember and neither of them is really prepared for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for the usual. You guys know the drill.

“Your bath is ready,” says Thor when he comes back into the room where he is still sitting on the windowsill because the sun pouring into those chambers that don’t _look_ familiar even though the magic in the air _feels_ somewhat familiar is warming his back and that sensation is quite pleasant. He doesn’t know why but it’s of vital importance to him that he can _feel_ that warmth and that he _finds_ it pleasant rather than, well, whatever the opposite of that sensation might be.

He slides down from the windowsill and his gaze lands on the shards. Again. His eyes have traveled to them all the time when he listened to the water running because his mind can’t seem to forget that they’re there but then there’s also this tiny shred of knowledge, well, awareness, or maybe it’s just a _hunch_ after all and it doesn’t matter because it saddens Thor when he uses them because Thor does not _understand_ how sweet and soothing the edges of those shards can be when they split open the skin and how the skin prickles when it tears open, no, Thor doesn’t know the comforts of pain like he does and that is why tears sparkle in his eyes every time—

“Loki?”

He glances up and Thor smiles at him and he knows he can’t have those shards when Thor is in the room because he doesn’t want to make Thor sad. Thor doesn’t _deserve_ to be sad. Thor brought him here and kept the Allfather away. The Allfather who _despises_ him even more than He does, well, did, for He is now dead, isn’t he, but the Allfather isn’t and neither is his scorn for him because the Allfather does think him vile even if Thor doesn’t but Thor will protect him and he can’t make him sad.

He smiles back, or at least tries to because his lips don’t really seem to know how to _form_ a smile, and he walks past Thor into the bath. There is the shadow of a memory scurrying over the edge of his consciousness—a fuzzy image of blood in this bathtub—but it is gone again before he has a chance to catch it.

“Are you going to be alright?” Thor asks again and he nods eagerly because Thor needs to go. Thor needs to go because if he leaves, he can have that shard again without making Thor sad and his heart beats a little faster at the thought.

He pulls of the garment he is wearing and when he does, Thor’s mouth gapes open and then he makes a squeaking, gasping sound and his hand flies to his mouth to cover it. He raises an eyebrow at Thor before he instinctively turns around because there is a mirror there and a part of him remembers that mirrors provide the opportunity to confirm … Shock slams into him with such a force that he stumbles backwards when he sees his reflection because that can’t be really him there in the mirror, can it, and Thor asks “What’s the m—?” but then falls silent again and _why does he look like that_? He touches his face and he can _see_ that the reflection does the same, running its fingers along the razor-sharp jawline poking through his pale, white skin, and he is aware that this means it is _him_ in that mirror but _that skin, that WHITE SKIN is just wrong and those eyes are wrong too because they’re a BRIGHT GREEN and they gleam like polished emeralds and they’re pretty and they aren’t SUPPOSED TO BE PRETTY, are they, and his hair is black and shiny and sticky but that skin, that SKIN, it should be_... _it should be what_?

Blue.

He doesn’t know why that color is of any significance and it matters not, for the thought is lost to him again in a heartbeat, and Thor is draping a towel over the mirror. “Better?”

He nods but it’s not really better, is it, because what he saw … what the mirror showed him … he should shatter it, yes, he _must_ shatter it, oh yes, he can already hear the sound of its glass breaking into pieces, can hear the shards clattering to the tiles of the floor where he only has to bend down and pick them up, but no, not with Thor in the room, he must wait and hold it back until Thor goes to see the Allfather.

“It’s going to be alright,” mumbles Thor and he thinks that, sometimes, Thor is talking to himself and trying to make himself believe that everything is going to be _alright_ , because he repeats that word all the time, doesn’t he, _alright_ , he repeats it _all the time_ because he needs it to be true.

He nods again. “You must leave now,” he whispers because now that he thought of the mirror bursting has taken hold, the urge to shatter it becomes stronger every second and it is flooding his mind, submerging his entire being, and he doesn’t know for how much longer he can hold it back.

Thor smiles and nods but he looks sad, he looks _so sad_ , and that sight pushes the thought of the shards away, at least for a while, and before he knows what his body is doing, he finds himself looping his arms around Thor. “Don’t be sad,” he says and he doesn’t understand why his words seem to make Thor even sadder. Why his words make him _so sad_ that he chokes on a sob.

* * *

The God of Thunder strides into the throne room where Odin sits on Hlidskjalf with Frigga by his side and Húginn perching on his shoulder and Múninn on his arm. He knows that Loki is going to harm himself, he just does, because that look of pure terror on Loki’s face when he saw his own reflection was the visual evidence Thor needed to comprehend, finally and fully _comprehend_ , that his brother doesn’t remember himself and that the state of his own mind terrifies him. And, the Norns be damned, he can’t stop seeing that image of Loki undressing himself, revealing a gaunt ribcage and skin littered with scar tissue where his magic wasn’t able to close the wounds of the torture he endured quickly enough. He can’t stop feeling Loki’s thin arms around him either, those arms trying to console _him_ because his brother has forgotten his own sadness and derives more comfort from pain than from a brotherly embrace.

And Odin Allfather sits on his throne, his face as hard as stone, looking as indifferent to the fate of his adoptive son as ever. He draws a breath to speak when Thor reaches the throne.

“Just tell me how you will punish me for my disobedience, father,” Thor demands gruffly before Odin has a chance to become lost in one of his meaningless speeches. He can feel his anger boiling up inside of him again, bubbling and sizzling like a geyser about to erupt, and he wishes he could get away with burying his fists in Odin’s grim, unforgiving face.

“There will be no punishment,” Frigga replies in her husband’s stead and the look on the Allfather’s face tells Thor that the Queen has finally taken a stand against him.

His jaw drops. “Wh-what?”

“You disobeyed your father’s commands, that is true,” Frigga continues and the God of Thunder is surprised how well she is holding herself after she almost broke down in front of him the night before. “But you disobeyed him to bring Loki back here and, for as long as I am to remain Queen of Asgard, no one will _ever_ be punished for trying to save a member of this family.”

 _This family_ , Thor muses silently because _this family_ will never be the same. Even if Loki regains access to his mind, his little brother will _never_ be the same. _This_ _family_ will _never_ be the same because everything Loki had to endure has irrevocably changed them all. Has changed them forever.

“You were willing to risk everything, even your own life, for your brother and our son to be safe again,” Frigga concludes, “and any realm considering such a deed a crime would not be a realm worth living in.”

Thor gives a nod because he doesn’t know what else to do and Frigga urges her husband to speak with a glare.

“You might not have acted wisely regarding the good of the Nine Realms but you have proven your loyalty to your brother and, with that, you have proven the good of your heart,” Odin concedes with the slightest edge of reluctance to his voice. “You have proven that, in dire circumstances, you will choose love over duty. Such fierce loyalty to a single being is not a trait I seek in the future king of Asgard but it is a trait that I am proud to see in my son.”

Thor’s lips part and he glances at Frigga for support because, well, has Odin truly _lauded_ him just now? His mother replies to his silent question with a nod.

“You have proven your worth as a brother, as a son and as a man,” Odin concludes. “I will hence absolve you from all of your duties as crown prince for as long as you tend to Loki’s recovery. After that, the future shall reveal your worth as a successor to this throne.”

* * *

 _After that_ , Thor’s mind screams at him over and over again as he hurries back to Loki’s chambers because he isn’t sure if there is ever going to be an _after_ _that_ but, then again, the future doesn’t matter now anyway, does it, no, _after_ is not important. _Now_ is important. And now is … He _knows_ what he will see when he pushes the door to Loki’s bath open but he is still unprepared for the _actual_ sight of it.

And again, he doesn’t know what he sees first.

The towel he draped over the mirror lies on the ground but the mirror itself is intact except for that one blank space where a crooked shard of approximately ten inches in length is missing. Loki is holding this, and he is leaning over the edge of the bathtub, watching his blood drip into a pool of already congealed blood on the floor tiles, the smell of which hooks into Thor’s throat and almost makes him gag yet again. Loki’s hair is wet, which means that he has cleaned himself or tried to, at least, but the wounds he inflicted upon his arms are so deep that Thor can discern the tissue of his brother’s body from where he is standing and they aren’t healing, why aren’t they healing, oh right, dammit it all, because Loki is _wet_ and why didn’t he _think_ of that?

“Brother, please,” Thor mumbles as he drops to his knees in front of the bathtub. “You need to get out of there.”

Loki lifts his head, glancing up at him in confusion.

“You can’t use your magic in water, remember?” Thor asks, forcing himself to stay calm. “Your body can’t heal itself if you stay in there. Please, come out.”

Loki shakes his head.

Thor opens his mouth to protest but no words come out because, first of all, there is still the grueling realization that he has neither the power nor the _right_ to take this away from his brother but, second, and that is far more important, Loki begins to speak, whispering, “I have done this before.”

“What do you mean?” asks Thor. “What exactly have you done before?”

“In this room,” says Loki softly.

It takes the God of Thunder a few moments to realize what his brother is _actually_ saying. “You mean you remember?”

Loki gives a vague nod.

“You remember hurting yourself in this room?” Thor asks and his heart gives another violent lurch when the meaning of his words truly _register_ once they have been spoken. “Before all of …” He wants to continue but speech seems to elude him.

Loki gives another nod before his gaze fixes on the shard of the mirror in his hands once more.

There are so many thoughts whirling through his mind that Thor doesn’t know _what_ to think. If Loki has done this before, if he hurt himself before, because of how unworthy he felt, because of how much he loathed himself … because … but it makes sense then, doesn’t it, that he would revert to familiar coping mechanisms in his current state. But if he did this before and Thor never knew—he wonders, briefly, if Frigga did—is there _anything_ he can do, really, to make it stop? No, he doesn’t have the _right_ but he must try to stop him nonetheless because the wounds are gaping and they won’t heal like this and … “ _Please_ , give me that!” he shouts before he can contain himself.

Loki startles and glances up at him, panic flickering across his face. “Don’t be sad, please,” he whispers, holding the shard out to him with trembling hands.

His brother’s words stab his heart more violently than any blade ever could. “I-I am not sad,” Thor stammers as he rises to his feet, grabbing a bathrobe from a peg on the wall, although, _of course_ he is sad, but even more than that, he is angry and desperate and helpless because how is _he_ , short-tempered and impatient as he is, supposed to _tend to Loki’s recovery_?

“Please, brother, I am sorry.” It takes Thor all the mental strength he has left to lower his voice to a soft whisper as he kneels back down in front of the tub. “I didn’t mean to shout at you b-but please. Just come out of the bath. _Please_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I am pretty sure my heart shattered when I wrote this and that says a lot after everything that happened in this fic up until this point. Thanks to all of you, again, for staying with me through this angsty piece of whump thus far. I admire your perseverance. Now, how is Thor going to tend to his brother's recovery? Is he going to manage? Do you think he can do it? Are they going to be okay? Is Loki going to remember everything? Is he going to find himself again? Is he going to be able to let go of his desire to hurt himself? I guess you'll find out soon enough but I'm curious what you think :)
> 
> Oh, and Loki not being able to use his magic in water is discussed in the comics, one of the older Journey Into Mystery or Mighty Thor issues from the 50ies/60ies. Wielding magic is basically manipulating electromagnetic impulses, right, and I guess water messes with that because water and electricity are never a good match?


	15. A brother's love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alriiight, lovelies. First off, yes, I changed the title of this fic. I've been thinking about it for a while now and it just feels more right. I mean, not that "A brother's love" felt wrong, which is why I used it as the title for this last chapter instead.
> 
> Second, yes, you read right, this is the last chapter. 15 in total. As promised. My Twitter mutuals will be like "Wtf?? Didn't you run a poll a few days ago where 94% replied that they would be interested in more detailed scenes of Loki's recovery, so why are stopping now???" Well, because this feels like the end. I can't help it. Plus, you should always leave people wanting, right? 
> 
> Third, thank you all so much for reading this and leaving such beautiful comments either here or on Twitter (Ravenleaf, Lov_pb, Anke, Abi, Jenna, Roo, Achika, Misaki, Sharon and the rest of you <3). It has been immensely therapeutic and cathartic for me to write this and your appreciation of my words have filled me with warmth and happiness in these rather difficult times. 
> 
> So, thank you. From the bottom of my heart. And please, enjoy the last chapter.

The first day is the hardest.

At least that’s what Thor repeatedly thinks throughout the first day every time he sees a flash of confusion light up in Loki’s eyes because it reminds him that even though everything around him still _looks_ the same, still looks like _home_ , his brother no longer sees Asgard that way and maybe never will and, in those moments of realization, the chambers that used to feel so familiar suddenly feel eerily _alien_.

Yet, the second day turns out to be no less hard than the first and neither does the third or the fourth, and Thor begins to suspect that it’s not the days themselves but rather the _first_ _times_ that are hard.

Loki’s first bath was a disaster that nearly ripped Thor’s heart out of his chest with icy claws and the first time his brother opens his wardrobe after that and glances at his garments without any sign of recognition doesn’t leave Thor feeling any less desperate.

“These are your clothes,” Thor tries even though he can _see_ that Loki doesn’t remember the fondness he used to have for extravagant attire.

“They’re so golden,” Loki whispers, more to himself than to Thor. “Why are they so … shiny?”

Thor’s mind inevitably casts itself back to the period of time his brother wore the heeled leather boots Amora gifted him to appear taller and then to how, when they grew into men and Eitri forged their helmets, Loki’s eyes sparkled with delight because those curved golden horns made him an inch taller than Thor when he wore them. “I suppose,” Thor begins, his voice hitching, “you weren’t noticed and you wanted to be seen.” He gulps. “Wanted to shine in my shadow.”

Loki looks at him and seems to be thinking his words over in the void his brain has become. “You _are_ quite imposing,” he concludes eventually without any trace of emotional attachment and tears well into Thor’s eyes and his heart shatters yet _again_.

Not that his heart could truly shatter again and again and _again_.

But still, it feels like it does every time, and there are a lot of those painful first times.

There is the first breakfast he and Loki eat together after over a year. A breakfast that the servants deliver to the doors of Loki’s chambers but not inside because Thor promised him he wouldn’t have to see anyone. There are the empty eyes with which Loki stares at the food and then at the cutlery as if he has entirely forgotten how to eat. There is the way he shakes his head when Thor asks him if he truly doesn’t want anything; if he truly isn’t hungry. The way he flatly notes, “But you seem very hungry,” without any trace of the razor-sharp mocking sarcasm that used to resonate in his voice when he commented on Thor’s ravenous appetite in the past. The way he accidentally slurps when he takes a sip of Thor’s mead because his face screws up at the taste of the bitter herbal tea he used to drink for eons. The way he does not understand why Thor has to smile at the sound of Loki slurping.

There is the first time Loki leaves his chambers after three days, teetering around the palace like a newborn deer, gazing at the structure with his dead, empty eyes, taking in, _seemingly_ taking in the pillars of stone, the murals, the passages, the atrium, the golden splendor of the Realm Eternal, but actually looking _through_ those things. There is the way he pauses, his hand touching a column, a door handle or a banister. The way he poises in what appears to Thor like deep concentration, as if the feel of those objects would help him remember. The way his stare remains blank nonetheless.

There is the first time Loki walks into Frigga’s chambers after five days and startles her because he catches her in the middle of practicing magic. There is the way he shrinks back _because_ he startled her. There are the tears welling into their mother’s eyes when she asks Loki if she could give him a hug. The way he shakes his head and then just stares through the woman he once loved so dearly.

There is the first time Thor can convince his brother to venture out into the woods and the mountains stretching out behind the city of Asgard after eight days, showing him where they played as children and hunted as youngsters. The way Loki seems to relax, at least a little, when he is out in the open even though he doesn’t seem to be listening when Thor points out specific landmarks to tell him of the events that have occurred there.

Despite Loki’s continuous unresponsiveness, it takes Thor’s usually so optimistic self almost two weeks to resign itself to the prospect that this is his life now. Resign itself to the prospect that Loki will never wake. That he will always startle when Thor approaches him too quickly. That he will forever be terrified of Odin or of the sound of his own name. That he will hardly eat. That his once so brilliant mind will never be able to focus on the words written on the pages of a book ever again. That he will never again be able to tap into his magic except for those times he lifts cutlery into the air or casts illusions of floor tiles turning black.

Or destroys objects with his mind.

Loki continues to seek out pain but the frequency and the intensity of his need to hurt himself seems to decrease over time. At first, he seeks out that comfort up to three to five times a day and Thor never knows when it’s going to happen that chandeliers, porcelain plates or goblets suddenly shatter into a million pieces so that Loki can reach for the shards and close his hands around them until the blood oozes out between his fingers. Thor is unprepared every time because that sigh of relief that Loki breathes when he sees his own blood or when he feels the edge of the shard bite into his skin, he doesn’t know what soothes Loki more, if it’s the sight or the sensation, but, the Norns be damned, he needs that relief _so desperately_. It’s as if all his emotions are still there somehow, Thor thinks sometimes, but he can’t let them out because his mind won’t let him remember and so he lets the blood out instead, watching it trickle down his arms and legs with that look of fascination stamped across his face. Sometimes, he jerks away from Thor when he tries to hold him in the foolish hope that his love can also give his brother some kind of comfort. Sometimes, he leans against his shoulder and closes his eyes. Sometimes, he falls asleep.

But he never cries. Never dreams. Never smiles. Never laughs.

As time passes, Thor recognizes, or at least _thinks_ he recognizes, that Loki only shatters objects with his mind when he is upset or tries to remember too hard. Or when he simply longs for the sensation and almost carefully, almost _gently_ removes shards of glass from some nearby objects without shattering them and then carries them to his chambers like a treasure where he sits on the floor of his balcony, cross-legged, driving the shard deep into the skin of his arms. Where he sits and stares at his blood for hours under the peaceful, starry sky blanketing the Realm Eternal as his flesh heals itself again and again and again.

Yes, this is Thor’s life now. He can’t help Loki. He can’t _fix_ him, can’t make him _better_ , can’t make him _remember_. And neither can Frigga, who, as far as Thor can tell from the dry skin around her eyes, is weeping herself to sleep every night.

He can’t make him remember by reading him his favorite books.

He can’t make him remember by having his once favorite foods delivered to him.

He can’t make him remember by walking him through the library and showing him where he used to sit for hours, studying ancient spells written down in dusty tomes.

He can’t make him remember by sitting with him and holding him at night, showering him with all the affection he so desperately ached for when he was still conscious. The affection Thor always denied him before because he himself was subconsciously yearning for Odin’s affection and felt that the only way to receive it was by treating Loki with the same contempt as the Allfather.

No, Thor realizes, he cannot _make_ Loki remember. Loki’s mind has always been far too powerful and far too complex for him to ever hope to understand its workings. He can be there for him, yes, he realizes slowly and he realizes too that him _being there_ is important, but Loki will only _remember_ if his mind allows him to.

* * *

Three-hundred-fifty days pass.

It is summer again. The Bifröst is restored. Thor has asked Loki several times if he wanted to leave Asgard and he has shaken his head every time but he also shakes his head every time Thor asks him if he wants to _stay_ on Asgard. At least, Thor thinks, he seems to feel safe. He sleeps in his chambers alone. He paints his nails sometimes or braids flowers into his hair. He reads. He lets colors blend into each other in mesmerizing swirls of water and paint on canvas. He even gained at least a little weight even though he still rejects solid foods and instead sustains himself with soup, fruit juices, milk or mead. He takes walks with Frigga sometimes and watches her wield sorcery for hours. She casts illusions of flowers and butterflies and fireworks for him, waiting for him to smile. Odin has busied himself with recollecting the Infinity Stones and preparing for the swiftly approaching Convergence, steeling Asgard’s defenses, renewing alliances with Alfheim and Vanaheim and renegotiating with Jotunheim. Loki has not yet agreed to see him and Odin has not forced an encounter.

Odin has not spoken to Thor much either and he prefers it that way.

It still scathes Thor’s soul to see the powerful weapon that was Loki’s mind so blunt and tarnished but he sometimes catches himself thinking that, maybe, it is for the best if the memories of what he had to endure in that cave remain buried forever.

But Loki is not that lucky.

Loki has _never_ really been lucky, which seems like a sick joke to Thor sometimes, considering how phonetically close these two words are.

No, for better or worse, on a hot summer night, his mind awakes.

Thor pushes the doors to Loki’s chambers open to wish him a good night and it no longer shocks him that he finds his brother sitting in a pool of his own blood on the floor in the dark, his back leaned against his bed, not wearing anything except for his underpants and a silken green robe that are soaked near-black, the skin of his arms and legs rutted by furiously inflicted gashes.

Thor swallows when the nauseatingly sweet smell of half-congealed blood hooks into the back of his throat. “Do you want company, brother?”

Loki’s head snaps up at the sound of his voice. “Go away,” he snarls at him and, _finally_ , there is recognition in his sharp voice. Emotion. Finally, there is anger and resentment, and Thor’s heart gives a lurch of joy because Loki knows who Thor is. No, not only does he know. He knew before. No, he _remembers_ who _he_ is. He remembers that they’re brothers and that their relationship is awfully complex, and Thor reaches for the lights because he has to see.

“What are you doing?” Loki snaps and his hitherto dead green eyes are _finally_ blazing again. His mind is finally racing again, working against him, of course, it has to, doesn’t it, it _has_ to remind him of how much he despises himself for being Loki. The God of Thunder can _see_ it in his brother’s eyes, can see that self-destructive flare, and the bottom drops out of his stomach because, _yes, it really might have been better for him not to remember_.

“I was just looking in on—”

“Yes, because you are the good brother now, aren’t you?” Loki cackles and Thor reels from the sudden hostility in his affected laugh. “You took care of me,” he mocks, spitting the words as if they are venom on his tongue. He rises to his feet, flings the shard of glass away and takes a few steps towards Thor, locking eyes with him, his face twisted into a sinister grin.

A chill creeps down his back and Thor takes an instinctive step backwards.

“Yeah, I thought so. You can only bear to look at me when you think you can fix me and turn me into the brother that you need me to be.” Another cackle, alien and shrill. “Needy. Helpless. Weak. But the minute I regain my consciousness, the minute I turn back into what I am, you flinch from me.”

“Loki, please,” stammers Thor. “This is not who you—”

“Loki, please,” his brother echoes in a high-pitched mocking voice and one of the shards of glass comes flying into his hand. It’s trembling, Thor notices then, trembling like it always does when he accidentally stabs too deeply into a vein.

“I k-know what you’re doing,” Thor hurries to say. “You’re pushing me away because you think that you no longer deserve our brotherhood. You’re making me leave because you think that’s what I’m going to do anyway.”

Loki’s lips part in surprise but he collects himself astonishingly quickly. “If I were you, I wouldn’t try to dabble in the psychology of emotion,” he scoffs. “You might hurt your brain thinking about matters of such complexity.”

Despite the hostility in his brother’s words, Thor’s heart takes another leap of joy and a laugh of relief slips past his lips because Loki’s mind no longer lies in ruins. Even though it punishes him, Loki’s mind is _finally_ working again.

Loki’s eyes narrow. “What is so funny?”

“I missed you,” Thor tells him bluntly and his words catch Loki off guard. “I missed you so much. I want to give you a hug, too, but you’re pointing a shard of glass at me, which gives off a slightly antagonistic vibe and makes it quite clear that I’d be a fool to touch you.”

Loki chokes on a sob and turns away. “Just leave me alone,” he whispers, walking back to his bed.

“Loki, please, why can’t we just,” Thor begins but then he remembers that he has vowed to himself that, come what may, he would no longer disregard his brother’s wishes even if he knows that Loki doesn’t _truly_ want him to go. “I am sorry,” Thor croaks and turns to leave. “I shall be gone.”

His hand is at the door handle when Loki whispers, “No, _I_ am sorry.” Thor turns around again and watches his brother slide back onto the floor. “Please, you don’t have to go,” says Loki softly and his voice is teary.

Thor walks over to him and sits down beside him, crossing his legs, careful to avoid the blood. “So, you remember?” he begins softly.

“Your powers of deduction never cease to amaze me,” Loki mocks him but his emotional defenses are crumbling at a dazzling speed.

“I’m sorry,” Thor repeats because he doesn’t know what else to say. The chambers fall silent and the silence is stifling but he can’t find the right words and he doesn’t know if he is even _allowed_ to say anything because he should wait until Loki is ready to talk. He should, yes, and he wants to, but by all the Realms, there are all these words floating through his brain, all the things he would love to say to his brother, all the things he thought about saying to him this past year, and _why_ , _just why, can’t he get them OUT?_

“Why am I not in the dungeons?” Loki whispers at last.

Thor’s stomach clenches at the possible implications behind that question. “What do you mean?”

“I k-killed my … father,” Loki stammers. “I almost destroyed Jotunheim. I laid waste to Midgard. I am a Frost Giant.” The last two words come out as a half-choked sob. “Why am I not locked up for my crimes?”

“Because they weren’t your crimes,” Thor replies. “Well, they were, in a way, but …” His words trail off.

“But I am a-a … Frost Giant,” Loki repeats and his voice is cracking as his breathing accelerates. “W-why hasn’t he k-killed me?”

“Because you’re still his son. He would have never taken you in only to kill you one day,” Thor tries but he knows that, after having absorbed a thousand years’ worth of racism towards the Jötnar, there is nothing he can say that will truly make Loki feel _any_ better. “And screw that old bastard anyway,” he continues. “You’re my brother and I don’t care what color your skin was when you were born. I don’t think any less or different of you because you are Jötunn. It doesn’t matter to me. You’re still the Loki I grew up with. You’re still my brother.”

“B-but all the … l-lives I took on Midgard,” Loki snivels. “I … t-turned into th-that … that m-monster.”

Thor loops an arm around his shoulder, pulling him into a side-hug. “You’re not a monster, Loki. Not to me,” he whispers and he just holds his brother as he did in the cave, his fingers on Loki’s slippery skin, feeling the warmth of his blood. “The lives you took on Earth are a mere handful compared to the number of lives Odin has taken. The number of lives that _I_ have taken.”

“But I am a Frost Giant,” Loki repeats in between sobs, again and again and again, chanting the words like some self-sabotaging, self-defeating mantra, and Thor holds him even though holding him isn’t enough, is it, _no_ , he wants to lift the burden of that knowledge off Loki’s chest but there is nothing he can do. Nothing. _Absolutely_ _nothing_.

The realization hollows him out. “I am so sorry,” Thor murmurs and his vision blurs with the tears spilling out of his own eyes.

“I just want to be myself again,” Loki whispers after a while. His shoulders begin to shake even more after he says this because he starts sobbing in earnest now that he has made the words truer by giving them a voice, sobbing those heaving, gut-wrenching sobs that Thor fear will rip his brother’s fragile body apart. “I just want my old self back,” Loki snivels, “but it’s gone … It’s _gone_! I will _never_ be … m-myself again …”

“I know,” Thor whispers against the crown of Loki’s head. “I know.”

“There’s nothing left,” Loki whimpers.

“Well, that isn’t entirely true,” Thor objects as softly and carefully as he possibly can. “You still have a brother.”

Loki lifts his head and a desperate, tear-soaked laugh rises in his throat as he locks eyes with him. “Is that _truly_ supposed to make me feel any better?”

Thor smiles at him. “I don’t know, does it?”

“A little,” Loki admits after a short pause before he buries his head back against Thor’s shoulder to weep himself out quietly as his blood dries on Thor's skin, pinching the hairs on his arm, and Thor simply has to believe that his love for Loki and the brotherly bond between them will be strong enough to help him overcome his longing to hurt himself. 

* * *

**~ The End ~**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, that's it, folks. I'm not sure about a sequel yet but, as a wise man once said, "Time will tell." Thanks for taking that road with me. See you soon <33
> 
> Oh, and thanks for helping me out with my "What drink do Asgardians have for breakfast if they don't drink coffee?" question. You see, I took your suggestions to heart.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a masochist, I know. I can't help it. Now, please, review. Thanks!


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